Cinefantastique Magazine: 1970-2002

January

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Volume 25 Number 5

The making of Tim Burton's black
and white ode lo a different kind of
filmmaker, me worst director of all
time, ED WOOD. $8.00

CIHEFAHT4STIOUE

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Behind-the-scenes of NIGHT¬
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Tim Burton s dream project and
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and its director. Tim Burton Also, the
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Volume 12 Number 1
The filming of GHOST STORY, in¬
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Irvin to makeup artel Dick Smith. $ 8.00

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VOLUME 28 NUMBER 7

The Magazine with a Sense of Wonder'

JANUARY 19%

Merry Christmas from Tim Burton! And
let’s not forget Season's Greetings from
horror master Wes Craven. Both genre
auteurs have picked December for the
release of their latest horror and science
fiction efforts. Quipped Burton about the
mirthful mayhem on view in MARS
ATTACKS! being at odds with the
holidays, at least the color scheme is
Christmasy—“red planet, green death
ray!" The color on view in Craven's
SCREAM is mostly red, blood red. If it
seems an odd time to release movies that
massacre their casts, one can only note
that the Christmas release strategy
worked wonders for THE EXORCIST in
1973.

West Coast editor Steve Biodrowski
provides this issue's cover story on the
making of Burton's MARS ATTACKS!,
interviewing Burton, producer Larry
Franco, screenwriter Jonathan Gems,
production designer Wynn Thomas,
composer Danny Elfman and star Rod
Steiger. Also included is a look back at
the infamous Topps bubblegum cards that
inspired the film, and the amazing CGI
effects work by ILM which convinced
Burton to abandon his ideas for the use of
stop-motion invaders. Coming in the
wake of the huge commercial success of
INDEPENDENCE DAY. with a remarkably
similar storyline, Burton's comedy seems
to be playing Stanley Kubrick's DR.
STRANGELOVE to Sidney Lumet’s FAIL
SAFE—two superlative A-bomb
Armageddon stories that shared screens
back in 1964. it's unlikely audiences will
confuse the two pictures!

For our coverage of Wes Craven's
return to slasher film territory, inspired by
the original HALLOWEEN. San Francisco
correspondent Lawrence French spent
several days on the set, observing
Craven in action. French provides a
lengthy interview with the director, as
well as screenwriter Kevin Williamson
and star Neve Campbell, who gives the
Jamie Lee Curtis victim role a new '90s
slant. Reported French from the set,
SCREAM appears to be Craven's most
assured shocker in years.

Happy Holidays!

Frederick S. Clarke

Page B

Page 16

Page 34

Page 54

Page 56

7 WARRIOR OF WAVERLY STREET

A 12-year-old local hero thwarts a deadly alien invasion in a
whimsical fantasy opening in March, produced with younger
viewers in mind. / Preview by James Van Hise

8 LEXX: DARK ZONE ADVENTURES

Creator Paul Donovan s new Canadian sci-fi dark comedy
premiering on Showtime in January is set in THE DARK ZONE, a
living, oozing, exploding universe. / Preview by ian Johnston

16 The making of “mars attacks”

TIM BURTON'S BUBBLEGUM EPIC

Auteur Tim Burton gathers a cast to die for, headed by Jack Nichol¬
son, in a DR. STRANGELOVE take on the infamous Topps trading
cards. / Articles by Steve Biodrowski & Frederick C. Szebin

34 WES CRAVEN ON “SCREAM”

The master of horror pulls out all the stops one last time with
Drew Barrymore and Courteney Cox in a story harking back to
horror classics like HALLOWEEN. / Articles by Lawrence French

48 THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD

The rediscovery of Robert E. Howard father of sword and
sorcery, creator of CONAN THE BARBARIAN—with a new
biographical film. / Articles by James Van Hise

52 THE PREACHER’S WIFE

Producer Robert Greenhut and director Penny Marshall remake
the 1947 classic, THE BISHOP’S WIFE, starring Denzel
Washington and Whitney Houston. / Article by Mike Lyons

54 JOHN TRAVOLTA: “MICHAEL”

Director Nora Ephron takes a different look at Heaven’s number
one angel, a more human, scruffy, average Joe-type with
prodigious wings. / Article by Scott Tracy Griffin

56 BEAVIS & BUTTHEAD DO AMERICA

MTV's animated kings of slack get off the couch and into movie
theatres as their creator, Mike Judge, and MTV render the
characters in hand-painted cel animation. / Article by Mike Lyons

5 HOLLYWOOD

58 Coming

GOTHIC

ATTRACTIONS

60 Reviews

62 letters

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larndnn. Alan Junes. Cnnlrihulnrs: Dennis Fischer, Lawrence French, Scull Tracy Griffin, Judith Harris, James Van Hise, lan Johnston, Michael Lyons. Dan Persons,
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EAGERLY AWAITED

Star Wars (Fox)

Two decades after breaking box office
records with his third (and so far last) direct¬
ing effort, George Lucas has finally an¬
nounced that he will direct the first install¬
ment of the next STAR WARS trilogy, which
is scheduled to begin production in the fall.

In the meantime, eager fans will have to
content themselves with the re-release of
the original, which has been revamped and
enhanced with new digital effects. One may
quibble over tampering with a classic—not
to mention trying to improve special effects
that were good enough to win an Oscar the
first time around—after all. look at what
happened to CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF
THE THIRD KIND. But that's not enough to
dampen our enthusiasm for seeing this truly
exciting science-fiction adventure back on
the big screen, where it belongs. Then it's THE EM¬
PIRE STRIKES BACK on February 21, and RETURN
OF THE JEDI on March 15—a space opera feast!

January 31

have to wait. Intellectually, I know how it's going to
look, but I don't know how it will feel to viewers To me
movies are also an emotional experience in a good
picture, an audience has an emotional experience
Whether or not it will work that way, I don't really know
yet." SEE PAGE 16.

MICHAEL (New Line) December 25

John Travolta stars as an alcoholic fallen angel in this
comedy directed by Nora Ephron (still coasting on the
reputation of SLEEPLESS IN SEATTLE* desprte the re¬
cent flop of MIXED NUTS). Andie MacDoweN and
William Hurt co-star SEE PAGE 54

The PREACHER'S

WIFE (Touchstone) December 20

In this new romantic comedy from director Penny
Marshall (BIG), Whitney Houston stars as the
gospel-singing wife of Reverend Henry Biggs (Court¬
ney 8 Vance), a good man who is doubting his abili¬
ty to make a difference in his troubled community
and home. But, not to despair; help is on the way in
the form of angel Dudley (Denzel Washington) who
soon becomes both the source of and the solution to
their problems. Samuel Goldwyn Jr. produced this
remake of his father s classic, THE BISHOP S WIFE
SEE PAGE 52.

Beavis and Butt-head Do
AMERICA (Paramount) December 20

The hilarious misadventures of the metal-head misfits
continue on the big screen in this animated comedy
based on the popular MTV series. This time* the two
television addicts actually get off the couch and out in¬
to the world. We re sure MTV hopes this will be a big¬
ger success than their last animated effort to become
a big screen adaptation: JOE'S APARTMENT. SEE
PAGE 56

Breaking the Waves

(October) Now Playing (limited)

Having opened in New York and Los Angeles on No¬
vember 15, this award winning film from Lars Von Tri¬
er (THE KINGDOM) is now moving into other art
house venues. Although the genre element is mini¬
mal, the film is still worth checking out if it comes to
your city.

CRASH (Fine Line) February/March

Although U S audiences still have to wait, David Cro¬
nenberg's new effort opened to impressive business
in his native Canada late last year, filling theatres
booking the film on a limited/exclusive basis. SEE
CFO 28:3

HAMLET (Columbia) December 25

Director and star Ken¬
neth Branagh has as¬
sembled an outstanding
cast of European and
American actors for his
new, feature film of
Shakespeare's classic
tragedy, which (lest we
forget) is partially a ghost
story. Branagh's adapta¬
tion contains the com¬
plete text of the play,
which is usually truncat¬
ed in big-screen filmiza-
tions Co-stamng are Bn-
an Blessed. Julie Chris¬
tie. Billy Crystal. Gerard
Depardieu. Chariton He¬
ston, Derek Jacobi. Jack
Lemmon. Robin WiHiams,
and Kate Winslet.

Mars Attacks

(Warners) December 13

"I think we're all curious about how the Martians are
going to look in the environment we designed for
them," said production designer Wynn Thomas. "I wish
I could say it's going to look this way or that way. but I

Upcoming cinefantastique at a
glance, along with a word or two
for the discriminating viewer.

complied by Jay Stevenson
(unless otherwise noted)

SCREAM (Dimension) December 20

In this psychological thriller, directed by Wes Craven
and written by Kevin Williamson, the small California
town of Santa Rosa comes under siege from a mur¬
derer who takes all of his cues from the movies The
young people he targets can only survive rf they have
the presence of mind to follow movie rules: Don't an¬
swer the door. Don't hide in the closet. Don't just
stand there. Don’t go back in the house Don't trip.
Don’t answer the phone. Don't ask, "Who’s there**"
Don’t have sex. Don't drink or do drugs And whatever
you do, never, ever, under any circumstances,
scream. SEE PAGE 32.

Whole Wide World

(Sony Classics) December 20 (limited)

Based on the memoir One Who Walked Alone by Nova-
lyne Price Ellis, this biographical film examines the
short life of 1930s' pulp-fiction writer Robert E. Howard,
creator of Conan the Barbarian, Solomon Kane, and
Kull the Conqueror. SEE PAGE 48

ROOM TO BREATHE

The Relic

(Paramount}

We originally expected this film to open on August
23. but Paramount insists that it was not pushed
back. ‘Any early list showing a firm date is wrong,'
studio vice chairman Barry London told the L A
Times "We thought about mid-August but looked at
the Olympics and felt the movie had a better
chance on January 17. This kind ot movie needs
time to breathe.’ Well, maybe so. but this is the
same studio that gave us THINNER after several
months' delay This $50-million monster in a muse¬
um movie was produced by Gale Ann Hurd, who
most recently gave us THE GHOST AND THE
DARKNESS. Tom Sizemore and Penelope
Ann Miller star for director Peter Hyams. in
this adaptation of the novel by Douglas Pre¬
ston and Lincoln Child. Stan Winston's ef¬
fects studio provided the monster and the
mayhem it causes, including numerous
headless victims. ‘The creature eats their
head, sucks out same kind of vital element,"
said makeup man Robert Hall "Basically. I
did all the gory stumps for the bodies, paint¬
ed all the silicone hands and body parts, and
did a lot of the silicone construction, which is
something I had started on THE GHOST AND
THE DARKNESS We were making bodies
for that and THE RELIC back-to-back; it was
basically a big pile of mutilated people for
two different films.' oougl.s E b,

January 17

4

AN AMERICAN
WEREWOLF IN PARIS

With apologies to George Gershwin.

Fifteen years alter the release of John Landis'AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN
LONDON (above) a sequel has been completed. Landis was not involved.

by Alan Jones

Rumors of a sequel were often
circulated—was it going to be AN
AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LON¬
DON II or AN AMERICAN WERE¬
WOLF IN PARIS? and specula¬
tion ran rife when it was confirmed
by Polygram Filmed Entertainment
(the backers of the original film)
that John Landis was indeed writ¬
ing a continuation. However, al¬
though Landis and Marco Brambilla
(DEMOLITION MAN) were both
mentioned as director possibilities,
nothing ever happened. Until now.

Director Anthony Waller has put
the sequel on the production fast-
track thanks to the industry buzz
and critical acclaim of his debut
feature, last year's blackly comic
thriller MUTE WITNESS. Waller ac¬
tively relished the thought when he
and his MUTE WITNESS producer,
Richard Claus, were approached
as a director-producer team-for-
hire to take over AN AMERICAN
WEREWOLF IN PARIS last Febru¬
ary. Waller recalled, "We were of¬
fered it by Propaganda, a sub¬
sidiary of Polygram, who had been
developing the project for over six
years with three different teams of
writers. They'd spent over $1 mil¬
lion to get a possible sequel ab¬
solutely nowhere at all. They were
never happy with any script draft to
put out on the market place."

Waller reporter, “I never read
that Landis script, although John did
relate the whole story to me person¬
ally one evening. He seemed highly
enthusiastic about it and was rather
put out that Polygram thought he'd
just written anything to fob them off
and get the money owed to him.
Polygram didn't think he was seri¬
ous about the concept—which, of
course, he was."

However, Waller elected to go
off on his own tangent with the se¬
quel. Tm messing about with the
whole werewolf idiom primarily be¬
cause I’m competing with the John
Landis original." he said."Actually,
not the Landis original—more the
impression it has made on the
memory. I had a stunning impres¬

sion of it. Then, when we were first
approached with the sequel idea. I
saw it again for the first time since
1981, and I was disappointed. Yet I
remember it so well, so freshly. I
don't think many people will have
seen it since then either, and com¬
peting with their heightened memo¬
ry of it is even tougher. Anything
that reaches cult status suddenly
becomes taboo to fiddle with, the
‘It's a classic, leave it alone’ mental¬
ity. And that's precisely the reason

I've taken the story off into different
tangents. I viewed AN AMERICAN
WEREWOLF IN LONDON as just
the beginning—a starting point that
opened up a whole new realm of
unique entertainment, mixing hor¬
ror. suspense, comedy and terror.
It's an area that hasn’t been ex¬
plored enough since Landis did it
the first time around, and you
wouldn't be able to do that again
unless you went off in a completely
different direction yourself."

Conan, TV
Barbarian

by James Van Hise

In April 1996, a double-page
spread in Variety announced that
Keller Entertainment (clearly in¬
spired by the on-going success of
HERCULES and XENA) had made
a deal to produce a syndicated CO¬
NAN TV series. At present there is
a two-hour pilot script written by
Steve Hayes, the head of project
development for the company, but
nothing has been filmed yet. Hayes
stated. "We've gotten enormous re¬
sponse to this—far more than with
any of the other shows we've got.
So there isn't a problem of getting
the money, it’s a question of who do
we want to get backing us."

Even though a lot of ground¬
work has already been done for the
series. CONAN will not premiere
until 1998. “We intend to write all
the scripts first so we know exactly
where we want to shoot them,"
Hayes continued. “We have a win¬
dow from the middle to late next
year (1997] before we will shoot. A
lot will depend on how well the
scripts come out. But nothing is
written in stone, even up to five
minutes before something is finally
shot. Our goal at the moment is to
go to Mexico, where we shoot our
ACAPULCO HEAT series, and find
locations down there where they
did the second CONAN movie.
Originally we thought of possibly
going to Europe, but we still haven't
made our minds up about that."

Conan, created by pulp writer
Robert E. Howard, cut a successful
swash through paperbacks and
comic books in the 1960s, before
helping to establish the screen ca¬
reer of Arnold Schwarzenegger in
John Mitius’ CONAN THE BAR¬
BARIAN (1982) and Richard Fleis¬
cher's CONAN THE DESTROYER
(1985). The actor slated to play the
role in the series is Rolf Muller, a
friend of Schwarzenegger's.

Regarding which version of Co¬
nan the TV series will use. Hayes
explained, "The version will be a
hybrid of Arnold's interpretation and
the Milius interpretation in the first
CONAN—that and what we ab¬
sorbed after reading the books. We
then made a bible of our own,
which I wrote, and out of that bible
will come the way we want to go.
But it's too early to give concrete
answers on all of that."

Short Notes

David Cronenberg, whose CRASH is due to open soon, has inked a deal
to direct his next film for Paramount, with Scott Rudin (THE ADDAMS FAM¬
ILY) producing. The project is titled CRIMES OF THE FUTURE (also the title
of an early Cronenberg experimental feature). The story revolves around a
man investigating “crimes" that are not illegal, because they are so ad¬
vanced that new laws have yet to be written against them. A) Francis Ford
Coppola has set up his next genre project at Hollywood Pictures, which
handled JACK, his hit summer fantasy starring Robin Williams. The new film
is to be called MIRROR. Matthew Jacobs, who wrote Fox-TV's recent DR.
WHO revival, will script the epic, science-fiction story set 100 years in the fu¬
ture. A Speaking of Coppola, last year Daily Variety reported that he would
team up with Oliver Stone and Tim Burton to create an HBO-TV series
based on WEIRD TALES, the seminal pulp magazine. However, when Cine-
fantastiuqe questioned Burton on the topic during post-production on MARS
ATTACKS, he denied any knowledge of the project. A When last we heard,
Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin were headed to Japan to seek Toho
Studio's approval for their Americanized remake of GODZILLA.

5

CINEFANTASTIQUE NEWS

INTERNATIONAL EDITION

PRINCE VALIANT

The Arthurian comic strip fantasy of
swords & sorcery comes to the screen.

by Alan Jones

Filmed on locations in North
Wales in the United Kingdom,
and at the Babelsberg Studios
in Berlin, PRINCE VALIANT
marks the biggest budget fea¬
ture film yet from director Antho¬
ny Hickox (WAXWORK, HELL-
RAISER III. WARLOCK: THE
ARMAGEDDON). British-born
Hickox. son of director Douglas
Hickox (THEATER OF BLOOD),
co-wrote the script with produc¬
er, Carsten Lorenz—who. unlike
the director knew all about
Prince Valiant, from Harold R
Foster’s successful comic strip.

One of the longest serials in
print. Prince Valiant came be¬
fore Superman and Batman
and has graced the Sunday
newspaper comics pages for
sixty years Foster, born in No¬
va Scotia on August 16th.
1892, illustrated the first Tarzan
newspaper comic strip in 1929,
and it was his realistic approach to
the Lord of the Jungle, rather than
the contemporary cartoony fashion
of the day, which led to the Arthuri¬
an assignment. The world of
Prince Valiant was one of fire¬
breathing dragons, damsels in dis¬
tress, noble deeds, chivalry, and
iron-clad knights on trusty steeds.
Foster's artwork reflected the epic
sweep of this material, and his at¬
tention to detail put the delighted
reader right in the medieval age.
although he took great liberties

Production Starts
Contact

Jodie Foster, Matthew McConaughey.
James Woods, Tom Skerritt, Angela
Bassett, and John Hurt star in this
adaptation of the book by Cart Sagan,
scripted by Michael Goldenberg.
Long anticipated, at one point with
George Miller (MAD MAX) attached
to direct, the film finally went before
the cameras with Robert Zemeckis in
the director's chair.

The lost world

Steven Spielberg helms this sequel to
JURASSIC PARK. David Koepp
adapted the script from Michael
Crichton's novel, which explores the
theme of extinction on a mysterious
island in some way connected with
the ill-fated dinosaur theme park. Jeff
Goldblum returns as Dr. Ian Malcolm,
this time with Julianne Moore in tow.

Robert Wagner in the 1954
version and Stephen Moyer,
the new Prince Valiant (Inset).

with accuracy by condensing over
300 years of history into Valiant’s
lifespan.

From the moment it began on
February 13th, 1937, the Hearst
Publishing syndicated serial was a
worldwide success. At the height of
popularity for the comic strip, which
was recently reissued by Marvel
Comics, Foster was averaging 50
hours a week on each Sunday
page, his efforts winning shelf¬
loads of awards, including the Na¬
tional Cartoonist Society’s Reuben
Award and a Fellowship with
Britain's Royal Society of Arts.
Prince Valiant even had his own
Royal fan: Edward, the Duke of
Windsor, called the serial. “The
greatest contribution to English Lit¬
erature of the last one hundred
years"

Carsten Lorenz (who, together
with INDEPENDENCE DAY director
Roland Emmerich, produced EYE
OF THE STORM, MOON 44 and
HOLLYWOOD MONSTER in Ger¬
many) said. “ Prince Valiant is a very
big hero in my home country be¬
cause he stands for so many quali¬
ties that we Germans admire." But
Anthony Hickox recalled, “I grew up
reading the TimTin comics and only
knew PRINCE VALIANT from the
1954 film starring Robert Wagner
[directed by Henry Hathaway]. And

I’m sure I only remembered that
because of Wagner’s awful
Valiant-style symmetrical page¬
boy wig and Yonder is the castle
of my father' type dialogue.
There was also that funny anec¬
dote Wagner used to tell about
how people would try and chat
him up on the set thinking he
was Jane Wyman! I only read
the comic strip when I was first
offered to direct a PRINCE
VALIANT film by the German-
based production company Con¬
stantin in 1993."

Determined to re¬
main faithful to the
strip’s original, inno¬
cent milieu, yet give it
an exciting modern-
day sophisticated
edge. Hickox and
Lorenz decided to
construct their script
in the mode of a me¬
dieval James Bond
adventure. Hickox ex¬
plained, “We deliberately went for
that fun Bond element. Here's a
hero who really thinks for a
change. He travels the world. He
gets the girls. And he's very re¬
sourceful. Valiant's exploits take
place in this strange off-kilter world,
but everyone must take it seriously.
Camp is a word that has been
banned from our vocabulary when
describing the PRINCE VALIANT
tone. It is not a comedy and we
didn't want it played for laughs. I
feel it's in a Terry Gilliam-esque
vein and like to call it a cleaner ver¬
sion of TIME BANDITS "

Good Fear

by Jay Stevenson
and Dan Persons

Can the art house and the hor¬
ror house ever merge? Well, at
least one company is willing to give
it a try: Good Fear is a joint venture
between two small independent
companies. Good Machine and
Kardana Films, that has put togeth¬
er the financing to produce five hor¬
ror films in the $2 million range.
This effort grew out of the two com¬
pany's working together on last
year's SAFE, from director Todd
Haynes. The film was an art house
allegory with science-fiction over¬
tones, about a woman (Julianne
Moore) who suffers from an uniden¬
tifiable malady loosely referred to
as “20th Century Disease" (appar¬
ently an allergic reaction to the 20th
century). In effect, the film was a
monster movie with a monster that
was intangible rather tangible.

In keeping with this seminal
venture. Good Fear will be making
auteur-driven films, with genre ele¬
ments. that are intended to appeal
to audiences who normally look
down on horror. The newly formed
company completed its first effort
earlier this year, OFFICE KILLER,
starring Jeanne Tripplehorn, Carol
Kane, and Molly Ringwald, which
marked the directing debut of pho¬
tographer Cindy Sherman. Their
second effort, LOVE GOD, com¬
pleted post-production late this
summer. Said Frank Grow, an artist
who made his directing debut on
the latter film, “I want [the audience]
to feel like they've seen some¬
thing- well, not totally new, but a
fresh monster movie, a '90s movie.
There are no cliches. I hope: it's like
blending monster and sci-fi stuff
with a gritty kind of urban melodra¬
ma." □

Overlooked Emmys

Last issue’s article on the Emmy Awards inadvertently omitted the
names of several winners: Roger Hall, John Fenner, Alan Tomkins, Frederic
Evard Rosalind Shingleton (Art Direction, GULLIVER'S TRAVELS); Val
Strazovec, Jim Dultz, Jenny Wilkinson (Art Direction, MUPPETS
TONIGHT); Aileen Seaton (Hairstyling, GULLIVER'S TRAVELS); Ernest
Troost (Music Composition, THE CANTERVILLE GHOST): Natasha
Dabizha (Achievement in Animation. THE WINTER’S TALE); Tim Webber
(Special Visual Effects. GULLIVER’S TRAVELS): Michael Westmore, Greg
Nelson. Scott Wheeler. Tina Kalliongis-Hoffman, Mark Shostrom, Gil Mosko,
Ellis Burtman, Steve Weber. Brad Look (Makeup, STAR TREK: VOYAGER);
Steven Spielberg, Tom Ruegger, Peter Hastings, Rusty Mills (Outstanding
Animated Program, A PINKY & THE BRAIN CHRISTMAS SPECIAL); Si¬
mon Moore (Writing. GULLIVER’S TRAVELS); Robert Halmi, Sr., Brian
Henson, Duncan Kenworthy (Outstanding Miniseries, GULLIVER’S TRAV¬
ELS); John Lithgow (Lead Actor, THIRD ROCK FROM THE SUN).

6

Local hero thwarts
alien invasion in this
whimsical fantasy.

‘Preview By James Van Vise

ext March will
see the release of
the modestly-budg¬
eted science-fic¬
tion adventure,

THE WARRIOR
OF WAVERLY STREET.

The Trimark film, written
and directed by Manny Coto,
was produced by Jennie l.ew
Tugend (LETHAL WEA¬
PON). Tugcnd knew Colo’s
work from IIBO’s TALES FROM THE
CRYPT, which she produced for three
years. Joseph Mazello (JURASSIC PARK)
stars as 12-year-old Spencer, a boy who
finds an alien cyber-suit. “It looks like a six
foot tall man with a weird face, but you can
go inside it," the young actor explained.
Spencer must join with the cyber-suit in or¬
der to defend the Earth from a deadly alien
called the Brood Warrior.

All of the action takes place over the
course of a single night; the extensive night
filming was done in an actual South
Pasadena neighborhood, as well the leg¬
endary Bronson Cave and other locations
around Los Angeles County.

Said producer Tugend, "We realized that
the movie hung on all of the visual effects
and that, unless we were going to make
them unique and special, therc’d really be
no reason to make this movie, because
there's been movies about robots and cer¬

tainly movies about kids and aliens. So we
needed to bring something unique to it."

The filmmakers decided who could ac¬
complish this when one of the bidders for
the job. Tom Burman. showed some prelim¬
inary designs he had done after reading the
script. "They came in with wonderful draw¬
ings of a cyber-suit,” Tugend continued,
“and a year later the cyber-suit we’re film¬
ing looks very close to their original vision.
From that moment on. the cyber-suit be¬
came something more human and organic
and less robotic. It had more human quali¬
ties, and so we refer to it as the gentle giant."

Although the film is aimed at general au¬
diences, the producer feels that the term
“family film" is one which has been
overused and is often applied to films
which are on the bland side. “It’s a whimsi-

Upper left: the Tom Burman-designed cyber-sult.
Upper right: the alien suit is found and worn by a
young man to fight off invaders from outer space.

cal movie that I think should
be geared for 9- to 14-ycar
olds. It'll have great action,
really unique creatures, good
battle sequences. It’ll capture
the imagination of the
younger kids because it's a
fantasy fulfillment — the idea
that a kid could get inside of
a suit, become an action hero
and save the world.”

Visual Effects Supervisor
Tom Ranone oversaw the special effects
and selected the companies to do specific
elements of them. The companies working
on WARRIOR OF WAVERLY STREET in¬
clude Computer Cafe (who are doing 70%
of the special effects). Digital Film Works,
Interactive Life Forms, and Area 51. The
latter group (which is headed by Tim
McHugh) produced the effects for a spec¬
tacular opening sequence showing the
Brood Warriors invading the planet from
which the cyber-suit escapes. (Area 51 is
best known for their current excellent work
on SPACE: ABOVE AND BEYOND.)

Ranone stated. “The nice thing about this
is that it’s a movie where the effects work
with the picture; they don't take it over. It's
sort of like a Film made in the *50s. It’s a good
quality kids film that isn't like a typical ‘90s
picture where it has to have all of these
ridiculous ‘just say no' [messages|. It’s just a
good tale.” □

7

German actress Doreen Jacobi as Wist,
a beautiful Inhabitant of Kaagya—a
planet made up entirely of garbage

be blown up, it’s blown up."

Several worlds do indeed
blow up real good in the four,
two-hour TV movies that cur¬
rently make up LEXX: THE
DARK ZONE STORIES. Bud¬
geted at just under $15 million,
LEXX was shot in Halifax, No¬
va Scotia, and at Berlin’s leg¬
endary Babelsberg Studios last
year, using a crew and cast of
Canadians and Germans, as

well as such well-known ac¬
tors as Rutger Hauer, Mal¬
colm McDowell, Tim Curry
and Barry Bostwick.

But the most important
component of LEXX is cre¬
ator Donovan, a 42-year-old
Halifax native whose previ¬
ous work includes such dark¬
ly comic low-budget science
fiction features as DEF CON
4, NORMANICUS (aka
NORMAN'S AWESOME
EXPERIENCE) and TOM¬
CAT. LEXX is easily his
most ambitious project to
date, employing a mammoth
amount of computer-gener¬
ated effects to bring its
bizarre universe to life.

“It’s ambitious in what
we arc trying to pull off —
yes," said Donovan. “The
computer-generated im¬
agery and the advances in it
allowed us to pull it off on
a TV budget. But even so, I
think we’re close to being
the highest-budgeted show
ever produced in Canada."

The four TV movies — an
“extended pilot” — follows the
adventures of three fugitives
who, through a series of acci¬
dents and ineptitude, find them¬
selves at the controls of a tyran¬
nical universe's most powerful
spaceship — the LEXX. The
Manhattan-sized craft is a liv¬
ing, breathing, insect that has
been surgically altered, and

By Ian Johnston

The setting may be a vio¬
lent, gooey world of insect
spaceships, drug-addicted
cannibals and horny sex
slaves, but the philosophy is
down to earth. “I think hu¬
mans arc a flawed species,
and our characters will re¬
flect that." said Paul Dono¬
van, the creator of LEXX:
THE DARK ZONE STO¬
RIES, a new Canadian TV
science fiction/dark comedy
to premiere on Showtime in
January.

“STAR TREK tells us
that honorable deeds and
pure thoughts will make the
world a better place. I find
that hard to relate to and very
boring. Whereas, I can iden¬
tify with someone who runs
when they’re shot at. They
may have morality. They just
don't want to die. They have
reluctant morality."

Reluctant with good rea¬
son. Being honorable and pure
in THE DARK ZONE can get
you killed in a painful, bloody
manner. And being dead in
THE DARK ZONE is no walk
in the park either. “It’s survival
of the fittest,” said Donovan.
“And although our characters
will try, in their own bumpy
way, to do the right thing, basi¬
cally they’re just in it for them¬
selves. If a planet deserves to

DiH ZOMI

ftDVSHTURSJ

Paul Donovan’s Living,
Oozing, Exploding Universe,

CREATOR PAUL DONOVAN

^Although our characters will toy, in their
own bumpy way, to do the right thing, basically
they’re just in it for themselves. If a planet
deserves to be blown up, it’s blown up.”

feeds on organic material — usu¬
ally unlucky prisoners.

“When we were coming up
with a name for the ship, wc
wanted something that worked
in all languages, and didn't
translate,” said Donovan. The
name LEXX is also something
of an in-joke, as it is also a vari¬
ation on the name of one of the
show's writers — Lex Gigeroff.

“Well it wasn't my idea, it
was Paul’s,” said Gigeroff, a
Dartmouth, Nova Scotia writer
whose previous writing experi¬
ence has mostly come in the
theatre. "But it’s all part of my
plan to rename the world in my
honor.”

In the opening story — "1
Worship His Shadow” — the
LEXX is the property of The
League of 20,000 Planets, a
tyrannical regime headed by
His Shadow, a cloaked bad guy
who would rather blow up a
planet than negotiate a peace
treaty. This destructive course
includes sending enemies, law
breakers, and anyone else to the
protein bank, where their bodies
are used to feed the still-under¬
construction LEXX. His Shad¬
ow's big plan is to pilot the ship
on a planet-ravaging journey,
putting down opposition once
and for all.

Foiling his mission inadver¬
tently is Stanley Tweedle (Brian

Downey), a luckless Class Four
Security Guard described by
Donovan as “something of a
cowardly lion." Stan discovers
from rebels that he holds the
key to commanding the LEXX,
even if he doesn't really want
to.

“He has some heroic quali¬
ties, but it's always a surprise
when he does something hero¬
ic,” said Downey, who worked
with Donovan on NORMANI-
CUS and the filmmaker's 1989
ghost flick GEORGE'S IS¬
LAND. “Stan hasn't been laid
for seven years, so it kinda
dominates his thinking."

Joining Stan is Zev, played
by German actress Eva Habcr-
mann, a formerly huge, ugly
prisoner who was transformed
into a beautiful sex slave by the
dictatorial regime. Only prob¬
lem is, the process wasn't com¬
pleted. Zev may be beautiful,
but she’s still a tough, bitter
woman who has no patience
for the people who formerly
shunned her. She’s got sex slave
characteristics in her, as well as
a bit of Cluster Lizard, a mur¬
derous creature who stuck his
nose into Zev's transformation
at precisely the wrong time.
"They're pretty lonely in this
universe,” said the 20-year-old
Habermann. “Other than the
main characters, everybody is

Top loft: LEXX’s bulbous eyes, capable of firing a planet-destroying ribbon of
energy. Middle left: The series' striking organic look, shown to good effect.
Below: Part insect, part spaceship and like nothing else: the 10 km long LEXX.
Showtime debuts producer/director Donovan's outre mini-series in January

Casting
Guest stars

Malcom McDowell, Tim
Curry and Rutger Hauer
on their quirky star turns.

By Ian Johnston

LEXX: THE DARK ZONE
STORIES has hired three well-
known character actors and a
hunky leading-man to help sell
its weird universes.

Malcolm McDowell, Rutger
Hauer, Tim Curry and Barry
Bostwick have been cast in
LEXX, appearing separately in
supporting roles in the four ini¬
tial stories.

The hiring of name actors is,
on one level, a marketing ploy
aimed at making it easier to sell
the Nova Scotian scries around
the world. Still, it’s not like the
actors haven’t been given any¬
thing to do with each playing

Tim Curry, in his guest role as the
well-dressed, verse-spouting
holographic librarian in Super Nova.

small, but memorable roles in
the space stories.

McDowell, Curry and Hauer
all claim to have been attracted
to the Halifax project for the
same reason — the script was
just too weird to pass up. “Well,
this was just very unusual,’’ said
Hauer during filming of story
#3, called “Eating Pattern.” “It
takes a lot of liberties — but in a
good sense. This goes farther
than anything I’ve ever done.”

In “Eating Pattern,” Hauer
plays Bog, the apparent leader
of Klaagya, a planet composed
entirely of garbage. The sur¬
vivors of this putrid wasteland
sport large worms in their necks
which they must provide with
Pattern — a hallucinogenic brew
that Bog makes out of planet
seepage and human body
parts — sometimes their own.

“This is so daring and ex¬
treme in the way it wants to go.
It goes into a real funky territo¬
ry,” said Hauer, whose manic
character provides the story
with much of its gallows humor.
“I’ve been given a lot of free¬
dom with this character as well.
They’re letting me go where I
feel I should go.”

Writer Lex Gigeroff noted
that Hauer — who shot his
scenes in Halifax and Ger¬
many — took a great interest in
the script, providing some off¬
beat dialogue suggestions for
his character. “You had to reign
him in a bit, because some of
his ideas were just a little too
fucked up," said Gigeroff. “But
some of his ideas were really
funny.”

Gigeroff recalled that, in the

Malcom McDowall (left) with series regulars Eva Haberman as
Zev and Michael McManus as Kal, a 2000 year old dead man.

original script, Bog learns of the
age of LEXX's resident dead
man Kai (Michael McManus).
“The line read, ‘He’s 2000
years old—he has a lot of mem¬
ories.’ But Rutger rewrote it to
say, ‘He’s 2000 year old. That’s
a lot of birthday parties.’”

McDowell concurred with
Hauer’s assessment of the
script. “It is pretty far out there.
I know who my character is, but
don’t ask me about the rest of
the story. I don’t have a clue.”

In story #4, called “Giga
Shadow," McDowell is cast as a
cleric named Yottskry who is
accidentally infused with the
essence of the evil leader of The
Cluster — His Shadow. Yottskry
finds himself in an internal bat¬
tle to stop the Shadow’s de¬
structive mission and save the
universe .

“It’s really kind of fun — with
good and evil pulling against
each other,” said McDowell

during a break in shooting. “1
suppose it’s not particularly far
away from stuff I’ve done in the
past, but 1 had some free time,
so why not? I’d never been to
Nova Scotia."

McDowell—who was only
on the Halifax set for a week—
noted that despite the absurd
script, he’s playing Yottskry
straight. “I don’t like to go too
over-the-top. I did the villain in
STAR TREK: GENERATIONS,
and I know they wanted me to
cat more scenery than I did. But
I think it’s much better to stay in
control, and let the plot speak
for itself.”

Tim Curry arrived late to
THE DARK ZONE, filming his
sequences on the final day of a
four month Halifax shoot. Ap¬
pearing in story #2, "Super No¬
va," the star of the ROCKY
HORROR PICTURE SHOW
plays a holographic librarian
known as Poet Man. Speaking

On LEXX's bridge, director Rainer Matsutani talks with Rutger Hauer (dressed
as Bog, leader of the garbage planet) during the filming of Eating Paffem.

10

1

WRITER LEX GIGEROFF

“We can’t be too serious because we’ve got
brains being eaten, cluster lizards ripping
apart teenagers, worms coming out of necks
and limbs being fed into meat grinders.”

The main cast and directors ol LEXX: THE DARK ZONE STORIES. Front. L
to R: Michael McManus (Kai), Eva Habermann (Zev), Brian Downey (Stan).

Back L to R: Creator director Paul Donovan, directors Rainer Matsutani
(Eating Pattern), Ron Oliver (Super Nova), and Robert Sigl (Glga Shadow).

completely in verse, the well-
dressed Poet Man is the last sur¬
vivor of a dead planet who
looks upon intruders as more
data to process.

“He [Poet Man] only sur¬
vived the destruction of his
planet because he was very
stoned at the time/' laughed
Curry, who filmed all his scenes
alone, against a green screen.

“In one sense, it's a bit
strange to do scenes that way.
But in another sense, you can
do them very quickly, which is
why I was able to do it.”

Besides convenience, Curry
admitted LEXX's unpredictable
script got him interested. “I
thought it was wonderfully am¬
bitious. So much of science fic¬
tion is dull and predictable, but
this is way out there,” he said.
“I think it's really good to en¬
courage that kind of imagina¬
tion. I'm grimly aware that
ROCKY HORROR was done
on a non-existent budget over
three weeks in a tiny theatre.
Yet it was a good idea. Some¬
times it's important to show up
for guys with really good
ideas.”

ROCKY HORROR co-star
Bostwick is filling out the guest
star cast with one of the more
predictable roles in THE DARK
ZONE — on purpose. Bost¬
wick *s leading man looks serve
him well in the opening
episode, "1 Worship His Shad¬
ow.” In it, Bostwick is the ma¬
cho he-man rebel leader
Thodin, who is captured by His
Divine Shadow.

Through a scries of acci¬
dents, Thodin, Stan, and Zev
manage to escape, and attempt
to steal the universe’s most
powerful ship LEXX. By all ap¬
pearances, Thodin is the star of
the show. He's definitely much
more brave, macho and good-
looking than Stan. But appear¬
ances can be deceiving. “We
wanted viewers to watch the
first episode and say — I got this
all figured out. He [Thodin] is
the hero," noted LEXX creator
Paul Donovan. "Then ten min¬
utes later, it proves all to be
wrong. We created this stereo¬
typical hero so we could kill
him off in a pathetic way. Some
viewers may be put off by that,
but that’s okay. I'm sure some
will find it fun. And we accept¬
ed from the outset this wasn't a
mainstream network show.” □

strange or they're monsters.”

Picking up much of her mis¬
placed sex slave instincts is 790.
voiced by writer Jeffrey
Hirschfield, a robot head who
lost his body during Zev's trans¬
formation, but gained a lust for
his comely crew member.

Bringing muscle to the ship
is Kai (Michael McManus) a
2,000-year-old dead man, the
last of of a race called Brunnen
G, who is killed by His Shadow
in an opening flashback. Now
employed as a hitman for his
killer, the grim-faced Kai mur¬
ders just about everyone he sees
until he comes to his senses, and
joins up with the fugitives on
the journey through a fractal
core to THE DARK ZONE.

“Who's the hero? T here ain’t
one," said Downey, who plays
Stan. “Kai is the perfect guy,
but he’s dead. And Zev is the
perfect girl, but she's got a bit of
Cluster Lizard in her. So I guess
you could say my character is
the one the audience identifies
with—by default."

In the four, two-hour movies.

the LEXX crew must do battle
with evil, poetry spouting holo¬
grams, a man-eating cannibal,
and drug-addled dwellers on a
planet of garbage. And in the fi¬
nal story, the plot comes full cir¬
cle, as LEXX returns through
the fractal core to confront His
Shadow and a mammoth planet¬
sized insect with plans of its
own.

Stories #1 and #4 will con¬
tain the brunt of the computer-
generated effects. Two and
three—in which the LEXX vis¬
its planets in T he Dark Zone—
are lower-budgeted affairs with
fewer characters, and little in
the way of space battles. "It’s
kinda weird how the series
works because the two middle
episodes are only marginally re¬
lated to the other two episodes,”
said Gigeroff. “I look at the
middle episodes as sort of the
models for how the series will
work—they go to a planet, and
shit happens."

Donovan noted several
movies inspired LEXX, though
John Carpenter's 1974 loscrs-

in-space tale DARK STAR is
the most obvious. “It |Dark
Star] definitely was an inspira¬
tion,” said Donovan. “Like that
movie, the central characters
don’t have the morals of STAR
TREK, but they have this pow¬
erful weapon so they can wreak
havoc in the universe."

As well. LEXX hopes to tap
into DARK STAR'S sense of the
absurd, with humor ingrained
into the situations, and few
scripted jokes. “We don’t have a
lot of jokes perse, hut we’re not
afraid at looking a little silly,"
said Gigeroff. "I mean—there
arc some odd characters here.
I'm sure a lot of viewers used to
STAR TREK might be put off
by how silly it is. But we have
to look a little silly to get away
with the level of sex and vio¬
lence we have here. We can’t be
too serious because we’ve got
brains being eaten, cluster
lizards ripping apart teenagers,
worms coming out of necks,
and limbs being fed into meat
grinders and eaten.”

None of which wmuld have
been possible had the computer
technology not come of age in
the early 1990s. Four years ago.
Donovan initiated the project,
producing a three minute test
reel featuring Downey and CG
effects provided by a couple of
Toronto animation experts.

The demo was an attempt to
show investors what could be
done on computers in Halifax
on a small budget." said Dorm-
van. “Frankly, that demo looks
rather crude now compared to
w'hat is being done for LEXX."

“From the time I did that
three minute tape. I knew this
was going to go.” said Downey.
“It was just so ambitious and
unusual. I knew it was going to
fly. And hell yes. I’m ready for
this to go to scries!”

Shopping that test reel
around the world for several
years, Donovan raised interest
and cash from a variety of inter-
national sources. Hitting the
ground running in the summer
of 1995, Donovan hired co¬
writers Jeffrey Hirschfield and
Lex Gigeroff, whose back¬
grounds were more in fringe
theatre than TV. “We’re trying
to bring in people with fresh
ideas on every level," said
Donovan. “There are a lot of
TV writers out there, but not

vonlinurd tin page ]4

11

PRODUCTION

DESIGN

Customizing a new look
for their SF universe.

al different worlds. It doesn’t
make sense that the look would
be the same.

“Our world is chaotic,” said
Nigel Scott, a Halifax theatre
set designer who worked on the
organic interior of the living in¬
sect ship The LEXX. “All the
cars and buildings arc designed
by different people, so nothing
really matches. And LEXX is
exactly the same—it’s just
chaos. “

The only consistent look is
organic—best reflected in the
giant, living, breathing title
“character.” Fleming says the
decision to have living space¬
ships was always in the script—
though it eventually came to
drive the plot. ‘‘The insect cul¬
ture developed sometime during
the writing of the early drafts of
the script and when a few of the
design concepts were being
kicked around," said Fleming.
“The LEXX ship was always
this giant, biological form, but
that organic idea seeped into
other designs. The writers saw
some of these designs, and took
those ideas into the writing.
Along the way, this back story
about insect wars came out, and
that worked its way into the sto-
ry.”

The insect wars—which pre¬
cede story #1—involve the de¬
feat of an insect culture by the
humanoid Brunncn G. The
Brunnen G have harnessed the
defeated culture’s ability to turn
living insects into spaceships,
and now sport flying dragonfly
fighters capable of firing
weapons out of their tails.

However, at the beginning of
story #1, the Brunnen G are
wiped out by the forces of the
tyrannical His Shadow. Fast

By Ian Johnston

Paul Donovan wanted an
original and inconsistent look
for the universe of LEXX: THE
DARK ZONE STORIES. So he
brought in a mismatched group
of designers with varying levels
of experience in movies, and set
them to work on different parts
of his universe.

“One of the concepts we
have is to keep pushing the de¬
sign," said Donovan. “If one ar¬
chitect designs a town, it never
looks as good as if you have a
lot of different architects. Even
if every building isn’t entirely

successful, it’s still more inter¬
esting.”

Applying this philosophy to
his TV show, Donovan hired in¬
dustrial designers, architects, a
matte painter /book illustrator,
model builders, and an expert in
theatre set design. Heading the
group was producer Bill Flem¬
ing, a longtime Donovan asso¬
ciate. “Rather than the tradition¬
al hierarchy where I would set
the design tone for everything,
do sketches, and hand them to
drafts people, designs were
coming form a lot of different
people,” said Fleming. “They’d
get filtered through the com¬
mand office, and then get sent
to the various different loca¬
tions like C.O.R.E or the model
shop or whatever.”

It sounds rather confusing,
but Fleming insists the ap¬
proach fit the project well. After
all, LEXX tells a story that cov¬
ers thousands of years on sever¬

The pilot of the Brunnen G. ship
sees through a membrane of skin
stretched and clamped across the
front. Like an artificial limb, LEXX's
ships aren't pretty—just fascinating!

forward 2,000 years, and His
Shadow is still attempting to
master the technology of breed¬
ing insects to be spaceships.
Several of his experiments arc
insect-inspired machines of var¬
ious shapes and sizes. They
look organic, but they arc not.

The interior of the LEXX
features the program’s most
elaborate sets, including the
LEXX’s bridge, galley, bath¬
room. and a cryogenic sleeping
chamber. However, though the
humans have grown and tamed
the insect, they haven’t exactly
renovated its interior for com¬
fortable habitation. The LEXX
is a gooey mess of veined or
ribbed walls (constructed using
insulation foam, to give it that
inconsistent, organic look), pu¬
trid swamps and chambers im¬
planted painfully into the living
tissue.

The Galley itself has the ap¬
pearance of a stomach, a round¬
ed room which spits out predi¬
gested food on demand from a
set of thick clammy protrusions
in the pinkish walls.

“Most science fiction has
this modern architectural look,
a particular style of architecture
that’s all octagonal doors, grey
walls and hard angles,” said
Donovan. “I look at that and
think — I don’t know what the
future will bring, but 1 don’t
need to follow a tradition. So
our world is going to be organic
in a design sense — the build¬
ings, space craft and environ¬
ment are all living material.”

Nonetheless, you’ve got to
be able to drive the darn ship.
So for the LEXX’s bridge,
Fleming enlisted the help of
stage designer Scott, who had
some inside knowledge on what

12

ft

LEXX's title ship Is the “unfriendly
marriage" of animal and machine
—a crude adaptation of a living
organism. Inside, the crew is
surrounded by grotesque living
elements that pervade every aspect of
life on board—including showering.

was needed “Pm the son of a
surgeon, so I had a little knowl¬
edge to work with,” said Scott.
“In this show, it’s not a friendly
future. And the LEXX is not a
friendly marriage of man and
dragonfly. 1 compare it to that
old high school experiment
where you make the dead frogs
legs move with a small battery.
The interaction between man
and insect is more like an inci-
sion. It’s like living inside a
monster that’s not happy about
it.”

So the bridge became a
raised platform on a precipice
that’s enclosed by walls of
transparent skin, stretched tight,
and clamped awkwardly to met¬
al struts. “It’s like a surgical im¬
plant or an artificial hip. It’s
functional, but it sure doesn't
look good up close,” said Flem¬
ing. “From a filmmakers point
of view, the stretched skin was
easily removable, so you could
shoot the bridge from any an¬
gle.”

The command “chair” where
Stanley Twecdlc controls the
ship is also organic in nature,
wrapping around Twecdle when
he’s driving the ship. There arc
also a noticeable lack of com¬
puter consoles to read on the
bridge. “It’s more sensual,” said
Fleming. “The ship appears to
embrace him when he’s in com¬

H|n this show it’s not a friendly marriage of
man and dragonfly. I compare it to the old
high school experiment where you make the
dead frog’s legs move with a small battery . 7 ?

Shadow’s tyrannical League of
20,000 Planets in stories #1
and #4. It’s a small planetoid
that—as His Shadow’s propa¬
ganda constantly tells its citi¬
zenry—is the center of justice
and enlightenment in The Light
Zone, a peaceful haven from all
evil that exists beyond the frac¬
tal core in The Dark Zone. Alt
of which is a bad lie that reveals
itself more and more as the sto¬
ries progress. The Shadow loses
his ability even to keep up ap¬
pearances.

“The Cluster is one of those
fascist empires that makes a
great effort to maintain control,
yet never really succeeds in
halting chaos,” said Laing.
“Cluster City is an inherently
chaotic religious dictatorship
where the architecture is also
chaotic and irregular. You can
see that right away—there’s a
huge crater right in the middle
of the city that’s never ex¬
plained. It looks like it was
blasted out."

Laing—a conservation ar¬
chitect by trade, specializing in
the restoration of historic build¬
ings—seems well-suited for the
creation of Cluster City, a thou¬
sand-year-old city that’s show¬
ing its age. “The whole city is
built on a ruin built on a ruin.
Buildings are built on top of
buildings, incorporating still
standing structures into their
own structures, which arc also
somewhat run down.”

Laing noted he took a lot

of his inspiration for Cluster
City from medieval cities,
with huge, windowless build¬
ings and shadowy monaster¬
ies. “It just made sense really,
because a lot of the action
takes place in the Hall of Pre¬
decessors with all these monk¬
like clerics running around,”
he said. “So we just made it
resemble sort of this vast me¬
dieval astrodome, with the en-
trancewav, the ruins of a past
Hall.”

Of all the places in the
LEXX universe. The Cluster
has the most echoes of past TV
science fiction—featuring lots
of uniformed soldiers, long,
grey corridors, and sparse fur¬
nishings. Fleming admitted that
the show took advantage of
LEXX’s multiple sets in a con¬
verted warehouse for the film¬
ing of one STAR TREKian
cliche—the long, long corridor.
“I really hate that long curving
corridor, but we couldn't get
around it. There was this one
running shot that went on for
150 feet. We ran it through one
studio, into a dressing room
area, and into another studio,”
he said.

“The Cluster is definitely
the most traditional-looking
place. That’s sort of the idea,
and maybe that* s why the
Cluster is the place everyone’s
trying to get away from. When
the show heads to another
planet, it'll just make it look all
the fresher.” □

mand. But all he has to do to is
raise his hand, and a screen wilt
come up anywhere through
CG.”

The LEXX crew can’t get
away from the living space ve¬
hicle even when they’re fresh¬
ening up. “It [the showerj is this
luminous pink tube that features
a phallic shower head that’s a
little too interested in its work,”
said Mark Laing, who served as
head art director on story #2 and
#3. “It’ll snake all over you if
you’re not paying attention. It’s
quite frisky.”

Although LEXX discourages
viewers from questioning the
science of what they’re seeing,
you’ve got to ask yourself —
where's the light coming from
in this insect? “That was an
endless problem,” said Laing.
“So we created the idea that
there are luminous membranes
and these pock-marked things
that are fluorescent. Maybe it’s
best you don’t think about it
much.”

“We tried to create the idea
that this structure creates its own
light," added Fleming. “It’s a bit
of a cheat, but it’s like THE
FANTASTIC VOYAGE where
everything is lit up around
these blood vessels."

LEXX's sense of chaos
carries over to The Clus¬
ter, the center of His

The Moth shuttle, another ot
LEXX's Insect adaptations.
The insect theme eventually
influenced the look of almost
all other aspects of the
series, giving the show Ns
highly organic, sensual feel.

13

WRITER LEX GIGEROFF

“Some people in the [Halifax] film
community are appalled by what we’re doing...
God you can’t even show a woman as a sex
object without someone thinking it’s bad.”

His Shadow, carrying out a plan to eliminate any dissenters—they'll either become
fuel for the LEXX, or part of the giant fireball that used to be their home planet!

necessarily what we needed."

In truth. LEXX isn’t so much
anti-STAR TREK, as strongly
opposed to all the pitfalls of
previous science fiction scries.
If it's been done before. LEXX
doesn’t want to do it again. The
moralistic and utopian view of
much of TV science fiction will
have no place in LEXX. And
the writers are relishing the
chance to serve up great dollops
of sex and violence.

After all. The character of
Zev is a sexual predator of
sorts, and sports an eye-popping
minidress and an insatiable ap¬
petite for men. LEXX also fea¬
tures two leather clad rapist/pi¬
rates. scantily-clad alien men
and women and a small dose of
nudity. “I’ll admit it. I want
teenage boys to pull off to Zev’s
poster,” said Gigeroff.

“Basically. I think we have
far too puritanical notions about
sex. Sex is fun, sex is good, and
I hope we can get a lot of it in
the show. We wanted Zev to
screw her way across the uni¬
verse, but we haven't done it
yet. Some people in the [Hali¬
fax! film community are just
appalled at what we’re doing,
like it’s some sexist, male fanta¬
sy. God, you can’t even show a
woman as a sex object without
someone thinking it’s bad.”

Violence will be presented in
LEXX on a regular basis,
though with a certain amount of
dark humor. People die, limbs
are hacked off. heads are cut in
half, worms erupt from necks,
and brains are consumed. And
in a scene sure to weed out the
weaker TV viewers, an army of
bright-eyed, over-achieving
teenagers are accidentally eaten
by ravenous space monsters
known as Cluster Lizards. “Ac¬
tually," said Donovan. ”of all
the things in the first episode. 1
think people will be quite happy
with the teenagers being eaten.”

Another departure from re¬
cent TV sci-fi will be LEXX’s
refreshing lack of interest in sci¬
ence. There are a few nods to
some scientific concepts, but
not enough to slow down the
action. “A friend heard what I
was working on and said, ‘For
God’s sake, get the science
right,’" said Mark l^aing, art di¬
rector on stories #2 and #3. “I
told the writers that, and they
told me to tell my friend to get a
life. This isn’t about science.

It’s satirical and fun, and much
of it is impressionistic."

“We only wanted enough
science to get us through the
stories," said writer Jeff Hirsch-
field. "The LEXX has a particle
accelerator, and that’s all you
need to know. We don’t want to
bother with dilithium crystals.
The LEXX gets its fuel from
eating. Simple enough.”

The living LEXX ship is the
center piece of the show’s organ¬
ic look. Besides LEXX, there are
several, single-man dragonfly
fighters who fire from their tails,
moth shuttles, and spider-like
spacecraft who extend their legs
to fire sheets of energy on the
luckless planets below.

The LEXX interior sets arc a
mass of veined walls and irreg¬
ularly shaped, gooey pinkish
rooms, with flesh held back by
awkwardly inserted metal
struts. The ship’s galley is basi¬
cally a ribbed stomach, with
pre-chewed food pouring out of
a protrusion in the wall.

“I wouldn't says the show’s
insect-inspired as much as organ¬
ic," said Donovan. “A lot of
things in the show are biological¬
ly driven, which is partly a fasci¬
nation of mine. We are a species
who often denies our biology.

Culture tries to transcend the re¬
alities of biology, but with only
varying degrees of success.”

Thus, LEXX features the
murderous society of The
League of 20,000 Planets, who
open the show by wiping out
the Brunnen G, a race that has
mastered the ability to grow in¬
sects into spaceships. Two thou¬
sand years later, the League is
still attempting to understand
and use this ancient technology.
Their first experiment: LEXX.

The insect clement eventually
took over the plots of story #1 and
#2, climaxing with a battle be¬
tween the LEXX and a survivor
of the supposedly dead insect so¬
ciety. “The insect concept came
fairly late,” said producer Bill
Fleming, who also heads the
show’s art department—an odd
mix of industrial designers, archi¬
tects. theatrical designers, and
book illustrators from Canada and
Germany. “The script did describe
something like, ‘they climb into
the moth.' But very early on we
decided that rather than use the
term ‘moth’just as a name, why
not make it a real moth—some
kind of bio-engineered life form."

Donovan admitted the idea
of insects in space is not a new
one. “It’s not unique at all. But

the sophistication of CG allows
us to make far more complex
models. A dragonfly in space is
not new, but it’s always been
difficult to do on a TV budget.
Whatever people say about the
show, they will say that, design-
wise, it is fresh.”

Shooting the ambitious,
eight-hour opus wasn't without
its problems. Because the series
was green-lighted barely three
months before filming com¬
menced. the scripts for several
of the episodes were still in the
writing stage when filming
schedule began. Both episode
two and three underwent nu¬
merous changes during shoot¬
ing in Halifax and Germany.

“It was very hectic," said
Ron Oliver, who helmed story
#2, “Super Nova." “When I first
got the script, it was all over the
place, because the writers had
hit a wall with it. The main char¬
acters were these buffoons. That
probably works on paper, but
the audience needed something
to hold on to. So that had to be
tidied up a bit by adding some
motivation for these characters,"
he said. “Fortunately, the writers
were very gracious about it.
There were no egos on this pro¬
ject. There was a lot of money
involved, but what they wanted
to do was going to cost a lot
more than that. So there was a
real sense of pitching in—sort of
like a school project.”

So far, the show has struck a
chord with international mar¬
kets. More than 40 countries
have purchased the scries so far,
based only on a few completed
scenes and a short video set to
Bonnie Raitt's version of “Burn¬
ing Down The House." It’s a
good start on the road to becom¬
ing a series. Donovan noted that,
if all goes well, filming of new
episodes will begin before view¬
ers will get their first look at
LEXX on Showtime. The pro¬
duction has already commis¬
sioned scripts for the scries and
is gearing up for production
even before the pilot films air.

And just what can viewers
expect in LEXX’s future?
“We’ll go into the same direc¬
tion we are now—great babes in
skimpy costumes, likable main
characters who are constantly
getting in trouble, and planets
that are weird and usually de¬
serve to be blown up. And very
often, they will be blown up.’*n

14

SPECIAL

EFFECTS

Setting new standards
for television effects.

By Ian Johnston

To achieve the elaborate spe¬
cial visual effects of LEXX,
creator/producer Paul Donovan
brought in C.O.R.E. Digital Pic¬
tures, a three-year-old Toronto
computer animation company
whose previous work included
computer-generated effects on
TEK WAR, the pilot for THE
OUTER LIMITS (“The Sand-
kings”), and some of the down¬
loading sequences in JOHNNY
MNEMONIC “The CG effects
on this are going to be far be¬
yond anything you might see
on BABYLON 5 or SPACE:
ABOVE AND BEYOND,” said
C.O.R.E. president Bob
Munroe. “Those shows have so
far set the standard for TV. We
want to take it farther.”

Munroe estimated 70% of its
LEXX's footage will contain
computer animation in one form
or another. For some space bat¬
tles and planet incinerations, the
entire scene may be computer
generated. In other cases, CG
will be used to enhance or dress
up existing live action shots.

“One of the specialities of
C.O.R.E. is being able to inte¬
grate computer animation and
live action so that you wouldn't
notice anything," he said. “The
pilot episode for TEK WAR
was and probably still is the
most effects-orientcd show ever
produced for TV—more than
even the DEEP SPACE NINE
pilot. But most people wouldn't
think of TEK WAR that way.
We tried to integrate the effects
as much as possible.”

Ironically, for a show that is
taking pains to avoid the
ground trod by STAR TREK,
C.O.R.E.’s CEO is none other
than William Shatncr. “Bill is
10% hands-on and 90% figure¬
head," said Munroe. “He is the
guy who brings us the atten¬
tion, and who knows all the
contacts.”

C.O.R.E.’s CGI work creates
the series' insect ships, such as
story #l’s battleship The Fore¬
shadow, a spiderweb-like ship
that opens up to fire sheets of
energy at planets. “The Fore¬
shadow is sort of organic in
how it looks, opening up to fire

Stanley Tweedle s space craft is propped for a shot by David Alblston, who
heads the team in charge of LEXX's models, miniatures and prosthetics.

Above: CGI effects composite of the Brunnen G Dragonfly Fighters. Below:
Production design artwork, showing the ship’s weapon-launching tall.

this death ray,” said producer
Bill Fleming, who headed the
show's design group. “The next
generation [Mega Shadow] is
more octopus like. And there’s
also ships that have been devel¬
oped that have more of a fish¬
like, cigar-tube look.

“They [The League] have
defeated this culture, but with¬
out mastering their technology,”
said C.O.R.E. animator Steve
Elliott, who worked four
months on the Mega Shadow
spacecraft. “It takes them thou¬
sands of years, but after a while,
they learn how to grow space¬
ships. not build them." Comput¬
er animation is also being em¬
ployed to convey the LEXX ex¬
terior—a bulbous insect head
with multiple bug eyes, on a
slim, mechanical frame.

Noted art director Mark
Laing—who has previously
worked on set design for the
Nova Scotia-shot Hollywood
projects THE SCARLET LET¬
TER and DOLORES CLAI¬
BORNE—working with CG is
quite a freeing process for an ar¬

chitect used to having to deal
with the realities of building
materials and gravity. “For
something like the Cluster mor¬
tuary, you could really play
with the size of the thing,” said
Laing, referring to the grave¬
yard of His Shadow. “In that,
we designed an 800-meter-high
structure that looked sort of a
like a funereal urn from the out¬
side Inside, it’s honeycombed
with hundreds and hundreds of
bodies. Try building something
like that on set.”

For art director Nigel Scott,
going from stage work to de¬
signing for computers had its
pluses and minuses. “There was
a terror from my perspective,
because my history is in design¬
ing sets that are built by hand,”
said Scott. “We’d design some
things for LEXX thinking that
they would be built, only to find
out they’re being done by com¬
puter. You’d think to yourself, M
wish I’d known that in the first
place,’ because when you're
dealing with CG, the sky's the
limit.” □

Tim Burton sends
up the bubblegum
alien invader genre.

By Frederick C. Szebin and
Steve Biodrowski

In 1962, Topps’ “Mars Attacks!” cards
never saw national distribution due to
parental outrage over their blood and gore.
But over the years, the little bubblegum
cards have become sought-after collector's
items alleged to have twisted more young
minds than Sam Raimi. George Romero or
Hcrshell Gordon Lewis in his prime. Now,
inspired by the cards, as well as the '50s

Burton directs invasion scenes on location
In Kansas. Although complax studio sets were
used, almost halt the film was shot on location.

sci-fi movies that inspired them, director
Tim Burton, producer Larry Franco, screen¬
writer Jonathan Gems, and composer Dan¬
ny Elfman are giving breath to Topps’ joy¬
ously anarchic bits of pop culture in a $60
million science fiction homage to be un¬
leashed December 13 as a delightfully inap¬
propriate Christmas movie.

A mega-cast has been assembled for
Burton’s excursion into apocalypse — Jack
Nicholson, playing two roles as the Presi¬
dent of the United States and a money-
grubbing real estate hustler, Annette Ben-
ing. Pierce Brosnan, Jim Brown, Glenn
Close, Danny DeVito, Michael J. Fox,
Pam Grier, Lukas Haas, Tom Jones, Lisa
Marie, Sarah Jessica Parker, Natalie Port-
man, Barbet Shroeder, Martin Short,
Sylvia Sidney, Rod Steiger and Paul Win¬
field (whew!), all taking less than their
usual salary to work on Burton's tribute to
'50s sci-fi movies.

The sweeping story ranges from
Kansas, where we first get an inkling of the
Mar-tian’s intentions through a stampede
of burning cattle, to the nation's capital,
where the President and his overzealous
military are confused and ineffectual in
their response to the aliens’ attacks, and to
Las Vegas, where the little green guys joy¬
ously wreak havoc on the tackiest place on
Earth.

Coming up with a story based on a series
of bubblegum cards was the first challenge
the production faced. The task was given to
scrcenwriter/playwright Jonathan Gems,

who wrote the scripts for WHITE MIS¬
CHIEF, and the 1986 Critics Circle Award¬
winning play “Susan's Breasts.”

“The original cards were so beautiful,
with their style of painting and everything,”
said Burton. “They were really pure, not
campy. They were just what they were.
They had a lurid quality that I like in
movies. I think such a thing serves as a re¬
lease rather than being culturally damag-

■ _ «

ing.

With movies so commonly seeking in¬
spiration from TV shows, comic strips and

A surprise attack targets Grandma Sylvia Sidney.

When the director put his plans for DI¬
NOSAURS ATTACK! aside, he picked up
their inspiration, MARS ATTACKS!, in¬
stead, and the process of creating a storyline
had begun. Burton knew he needed some¬
thing that could justify the source material,
please his own cinematic interests, and hold
up a ton of big-name stars.

“It's not dissimilar from anything else,
really," Burton said. “What’s really good
about these little vignettes is that there's a
whole genre of movies based on that ap¬
proach. M ARS ATTACKS! seems to fit

video games, it doesn't seem so odd that
bubblegum cards should have their day in
the Hollywood sun. Burton's involvement
began when he saw “Dinosaurs Attack!"
cards in a shop. Later, he wasn't sure if the
bloody images were something he had actu¬
ally seen, or if they were something
dredged out of his notoriously dark subcon¬
scious. When he was assured the cards did
exist, he thought about adapting them into a
film, a plan that was later put on the back
burner when such a picture seemed too
much like JURASSIC PARK.

Burton’s Martian’s blast away after
addressing Congress. Above: The
'60s Topps bubblegum cards that
Inspired the took of the movie aliens.

with that type of genre well.

"There were about 10 cards that I really
liked. When Jonathan and 1 were first work¬
ing on the script, we wanted to make sure
we had certain images that we liked in
there, not necessarily in the order they were
originally presented, but they’re in there
somewhere."

Only a few of the cards, such as the
burning cattle and the Martians watching
their handiwork on TV. made it into the
film. To anchor any story ideas. Gems first
began with Burton's point of view of what

The look of the gigantic Martian weapon was inspired by a sketch (bottom left) by director Tim Burton. The director and his invaders are )ust out to have fun.

the film should be.

“When I came on the pro¬
ject,” Gems noted, “Tim was
thinking ‘disaster movie’—the
invasion is like a disaster. Tim’s
always liked GODZILLA
movies. There are two levels in
the movie—the disaster and the
characters. You have this cheesy
soap opera, with these ridicu¬
lous Martians fucking it all up.

That was Tim’s inspiration—a
combination of the images and
that idea.

“It so happens that Tim and I
love movies like TEENAGERS
FROM OUTER SPACE and all
those B-movics. ED WOOD is
an homage to that. Here was a
chance to do something like
PLAN NINE FROM OUTER
SPACE—with a bit more mon¬
ey, of course! We thought that
was wonderful.”

With that crux of an idea in
mind. Gems went off and
wrote his script, making the
simple error a lot of writers
make in w riting science fiction
movies—he packed so much
into it that the resulting film
would easily have broken the
$100 million mark. Burton’s
idea at this point was to pay
homage to stop-motion godfather Ray
Harryhausen by depicting the invading
hoards in classic, frame-by-frame tech¬
nique. Burton went so far as to travel to
Europe to find the talent he needed for the
epic stop-motion thriller he envisioned.
But with that time-consuming process in
mind. Gems found he had to do a little re¬
working of his ideas.

“I had to rewrite it many times to bring it
in on budget." Gems admitted. "My first
draft was budgeted at $200 million. Obvi¬
ously, the studio didn't want to spend that
much, so we had to cut it down to $b5 mil¬
lion, which was hard. Tim didn't want to

cult’s a disaster movie
and cheesy soap opera,’
said writer Jonathan
Gems, “with Martians
fucking it all up."

With a Las Vegas showgirl, (left to right) Tom Jones, director Tim Burton,
Annette Benlng and Jim Brown, parodying the disaster film genre.

lose anything good. We did lose a couple of
nice things, but we kept most of it.

"This wasn’t an easy film because it’s so
wild.” Gems continued, “and even with Tim
involved people were worried about the
money being spent on something that’s not
mainstream. Studios like to do what’s been
done before, and MARS ATTACKS! is dif¬
ferent. Basically, this film is similar to
WAR OF THE WORLDS. If you do some¬
thing like that, you’ve got to spend the
money to do it properly.”

The author injected humor into the pro¬
ceedings that he feels makes the picture just
a little bit different than what has come be¬

fore. “There is broad comedy in
the film, but there are other
forms as well,” said Gems. “It’s
an all-around comedy, not a
spoof like Mel Brooks. It’s
satirical of America like DR.
STRANGELOVE. It’s a social
comedy with a sophisticated
sense in the way that one finds a
*50s movie funny. They didn't
make them as comedies, but
they're funny when we look at
them today. There’s a certain in¬
nocence that's funny today."

After numerous rewrites
Gems actually left the project
for a time. “The studio wanted
to move quickly," he said. "It
took a while to negotiate the
rights with Topps. By that time,
there wasn't a lot of time left to
write the script. I wrote the first
draft in three weeks. We were in
a tremendous rush. I did a
bunch of drafts and burned out.
I was getting three hours of
sleep at night. Tim said have a
holiday.”

ED WOOD scribes Scott
Alexander and Larry Kara-
szewski were brought in for a
couple of drafts. According to
Gems, the writing duo added
some good dialogue, but

changed the story so much that no one real¬
ly knew what was going on anymore.

“I came back from holiday,"
Gems said, “and Tim called me back to do
the rest of the script. 1 think there were oth¬
er problems that weren’t Scott and Larry’s
problems. They invented a character that I
kept [the President’s daughter] played by
Natalie Portman, but that was all they did.”
Alexander and Karaszewski receive no
screen credit for their work, but have re¬
portedly been good sports about it and
haven’t pressed the Writers Guild for credit.
Gems cited two people who really helped to
make the project—producer Larry Franco

Martians in Conaress.

The Bubblegum cards

Public outrage halted sales, but the series lives on.

By Chuck Wagner

The 1 950s had seen the first of the large
wave of flying saucer sightings. Soon, the
movies were filled with those twin pillars of
menace of the Eisenhower Age: UFOs and
war. It was during this period that a young
man named Len Brown began his career.
Working for Topps, he and a dedicated team
in 1462 created perhaps the ultimate evoca¬
tion of leftover late ’50s paranoia: the infa¬
mous “Mars Attacks!” card series. Topps —
which owns sole right to the concept of
packing cards with gum — added macabre
menace from the Red Planet to go along
with their pink squares of gum.

Brown, who wrote the cards and still
works for Topps. was just 21 at the time. He
had gone to work for Topps at the age of 18,
mentored by Woody Gclman, a friend and
former magazine publisher hired by Topps
to dream up new ideas for bubblegum trad¬
ing cards. Under Gclman, Brown worked
on Popps’ 1462 Civil War Centennial
Cards, an unlikely forerunner to “Mars At¬
tacks!" "It was during that scries that a vet¬
eran pulp artist named Norm Saunders was
hired by Woody Gclman to paint some
wonderfully detailed pictures that were no
bigger than 5" x 7'',” said Brown. "The se¬
ries, gore and all. was pretty successful.

The success of the Civil War cards led
Gclman and Brown to discuss science fic¬
tion concepts for a card scries. Gclman was
an avid pulp collector who had a complete
run of Hugo Gcrnsbach’s Amazing Stories.
Noted Brown, “We finally came up with the
idea of doing a modern War of the Worlds,
calling the concept ‘Mars Attacks’ after
briefly considering the name ‘Attack from
Space.’ After working briefly with Wally
Wood on the formative cards, we decided
on the team of Bob Powell (a wonderfully
talented and prolific comic book artist) and
once more Norm Saunders. Bob would do
the pencils and Norm would paint right
over them on illustration board.

"We did 55 cards in the series and were
quite proud of them. As soon as the product
was printed we placed them in several test
stores in Brooklyn. Sales were mixed. A

Len Brown, co-creator of MARS ATTACKS!
The cards' gory violence led to their being
withdrawn from sale after a storm of criticism

couple of stores did very well, and sold the
cards rapidly. A couple of other stores re¬
ported very little interest in the product.

Topps widened the product trial and
shipped the cards to other cities in the East,
but began to get bad press over the cards'
high quotient of blood and gore. Noted
Brown, "It was kind of shocking to top man¬
agement to get this kind of attention —after
all our heritage with trading cards had previ¬
ously been sets depicting ‘Flags of the
World.’ ‘Railroad Trains,’ ‘U.S. Presidents,’
etc. The only controversy we had encoun¬
tered were with the Elvis Presley trading
cards [when Elvis was thought of as a major
cause of juvenile delinquency]. So, the
‘Mars Attacks!’ series was never sold else¬
where. No further shipments were made. On¬
ly those fortunate to have seen the limited
shipments remembered them decades later.
The original cards became the most [valu¬
able] non-sports collectible scries that Topps
ever published by the time the 1970s rolled
around. We heard that individual cards were

selling for $5 to $10 a card. By the late ’80s.
1 started to hear that the original complete set
was going for $1,500 to $2,000."

Brown detailed how the cards were creat¬
ed: "Woody and I worked together coming
up with the scenes,” he said. “Woody, a for¬
mer animator for Max Fleischer and Para¬
mount Studios would rough sketch an idea.
The idea was sent to Bob Powell who would
dramatically redraw it as if it were the cover
of a pulp magazine. When the series was
painted, I wrote the descriptions on the back
of the cards as well as the front captions; i.e.
‘Burning Flesh.’Those were days that I
couldn't wait to arrive at work and meet
with Woody as we planned the science-fic¬
tion bubblegum cards. What a way Co make

a living! I thought I was pretty lucky.”

The cards emerged from limbo two years
ago, after the mid-’80s pastiche "Dinosaurs
Attack!” had shown that the concept, too
gruesome in its own day, could now find an
enthusiastic audience, eager to embrace the
gory carnage. “Probably over the years, we
have received more requests for a reprint of
‘ Mars Attacks!' than any other scries we
had ever published,” said Brown. "We test¬
ed the re-issue waters about five years ago
by reprinting our 1960s ‘Batman’ Trading
Card Scries. That worked out very well, and
immediately we had plans to do a ‘Mars At¬
tacks!’ re-issue. One thing after another in¬
terfered with our plans, until we got around
to doing it (in 1994].”

Brown worked with Gary Gerani at

continued on page fit

19

ROD STEIGER

The veteran Oscar-winner on working with Burton.

By Steve Biodrowski

Rod Steiger has a long and illustrious ca¬
reer on stage, screen, and television, includ¬
ing an Oscar for IN THE HEAT OF THE
NIGHT (1967) and an Emmy for LET¬
TERS OF HELOISE AND ABELARD. He
first gained critical attention for his sup¬
porting performance opposite Marlon Bran¬
do in ON THE WATERFRONT (1954), di¬
rected by Elia Kazan, and he is best known
for his highly-charged dramatic roles in
classic films like THE PAWNBROKER
(1965), directed by Sidney Lumet.

This dramatic pedigree may seem
strange for someone appearing in a satirical
science-fiction comedy from a director
known more for eccentric visual stylings
than dramaturgy; however, Steiger's film¬
ography does contain its share of science-
fiction (the title role in the 1969 filmization
of Ray Bradbury’s THE ILLUSTRATED
MAN) and black comedy (“Mr. Joyboy” in
1965’s THE LOVED ONE, adapted by Ter¬
ry Southern (DR. STRANGELOVE] and
Christopher Isherwood from the Evelyn
Waugh novel). Add to that roles in 1987’s
THE KINDRED (co-scriptcd by PSY¬
CHO’S Joseph Stefano), AMERICAN
GOTHIC (1988), GUILTY AS CHARGED
and THE PLAYER (both 1992)—and you
have all the horror, fantasy, and comedy ex¬
perience necessary to handle the outrageous
approach that Tim Burton has taken to the
Martian invasion of Earth.

Steiger was attracted to MARS AT¬
TACKS! for the opportunity to work with
director Tim Burton. “I considered [Burton]
one of the more individualistic and percep¬
tive directors," said the actor. “He’s a direc¬
tor that, if you walk into the middle of the
movie, you can say, ‘That’s Burton’s pic¬
ture.’ Burton has this individual view; I was
taught an artist was one who tries to com¬
municate his view as entertainingly as he
can. Burton seems to me to do that better
than anybody at the moment, whether you
like him or not—I think he's wonderful.
He’s only 38, which is amazing, and one of
the hardest-working people I’ve ever
worked with in my life. He handles pressure

Rod Steiger as the President's hawkish military
advisor, General Decker, called the cast
one ol the best since ON THE WATERFRONT.

extremely well.”

But there were other incentives. “The
part was a lovely part," Steiger continued,
“and suddenly I had the pleasure of work¬
ing with Mr. Nicholson, Ms. Close, and
Pierce Brosnan — it was one of the best
casts since ON THE WATERFRONT. I was
flattered.”

Steiger noted that he got “advice" about
working with Burton. “Before I had my first
meeting with Tim," said Steiger, “a friend
of mine told me, ‘Don’t frighten him.’ I
said, ‘I’m tired of that. I’m not a bad per¬
son.’ He said, ‘You’ve got a presence.’ I
said, ‘What am I going to do — cut my head
off?’ Stan Winston, who’s the godfather of
my son, told me, ‘Now you be careful. I’ve
worked with him, and he doesn’t like to
meet people—he’s very shy.’ So I knock on
the door, and by this time I’m expecting to
see Raskolnikov (from Crime and Punish¬
mentJ in a corner, all in black, making the
sign of the cross as I enter and saying, ‘Stop
there — we’ll talk from here.’ Instead, the

guy opens the door and says in Italian, ‘At
last we meet, maestro.’ Well, we screamed
and yelled like two Italians for an hour,
while I was thinking, ‘Where the hell is this
inhibited, frightened person?'

“So we had a lovely talk, and he told me
how the Martians reduce me in size and I’m
screaming and yelling with my guns blaz¬
ing, and they step on me. 1 said, ‘Does my
voice go down [to a squeak)?’ He said, ‘It
does now.’ He didn't call the front office
and say, ‘This guy’s trying to take over the
picture.’ He knew I was professional
enough, and any contribution from any¬
where that makes the overall piece better is
the professional responsibility of anyone in¬
volved in the movie, whether grips, actors,
or whatever."

Steiger noted he liked the extemporane¬
ous atmosphere of working with Burton.
“He reminds me of a European director, be¬
cause I knew Fellini and worked with some
others over there,” said Steiger. “They don’t
come on the set with a script that’s loaded
with the directions. Burton comes on the set
with nothing; well, there’s the script girl.
He’s got it in his head. He sees the set, and
he takes it from the rehearsal and the actors,
rather than superimposing any visual idea
he has on an actor, thereby making him un¬
comfortable because it’s his reality, not the
actors. That’s a good director. It was a plea¬
sure working with him. Of course, I had to
carry Jack Nicholson and Glenn Close, but
I'm used to that." Steiger laughed.

With this kind of a cast, one might ex¬
pect star egos to be a factor, but nothing
was further from the truth, according to
Steiger. Noted Steiger, “The reason was
that—and this is important—the leading ac¬
tors came from a theatre background, be¬
cause they were older actors. They don’t
come that way anymore; they come from
television, which is destroying a lot of
things. People do two TV shows, and sud¬
denly they say, ‘I don’t want any press on
the set,* which Mr. Nicholson, Ms. Close,
and I could never understand. If one of
them had been on this picture. I’m sure one
of us would have gone up and said, ‘Excuse
me, what do you do for a living?’

20

A dream cast: Steiger (r) and scientific advisor Pierce Brosnan brief President
Jack Nicholson on the invasion. Steiger extolled the cast's professionalism.

“I saw Nicholson on his
face, on his stomach on the
floor, after he could go home,
doing off-stage lines for a guy
who had two lines. They were
professionals, and they know
that acting is reacting, and if the
person you’re supposed to be
reacting with is gone, it doesn’t
help your performance very
much.”

The thought led Steiger to
muse about filming ON THE
WATERFRONT with Marlon
Brando. “That’s what happened
to me in the taxi scene,” he re¬
called. “Marlon [Brando) went
home when I was supposed to
have my close-ups with him.
I’ll never forgive that son-of-a-
bitch. But we came out even,
which must have burned his
ass! I haven’t heard from him
since, by the way.

If “acting is reacting,” as
Steiger stated, and if the ab¬
sence of a co-star can affect
one’s own performance, then
what was it like playing oppo¬
site the CGI invaders? Quipped
Steiger, "What am I going to
say? Nine times out of ten,
when you work with someone,
he’s not there anyway!” How¬
ever, in this case, the absence
was not a critical factor. “That’s
a different thing,” he stated.
“You accept that, and therefore
you don’t feel insecure. They
show you pictures, and you put
it there in your mind. It's not a
process of human communica¬
tion or behavior between two
human beings, which changes it
a lot. Because movies are the
perfect place for improvising
things around a given reality
that the playwright presents.
There’s millions of ways to do a

scene. It took me three years to
realize that two billion scripts
were not sent out to the public,
so if I change something, two
billion people do not stand up
and say, ‘No, that was a but, not
an and.* To me the script is not
sacred, but it is the sacred skele¬
ton of what’s to be done—as
long as you don’t deny what the
playwright was trying to do. If
you want to change the thought,
then you have to say ‘hold it’
and sit down: but if you want to
paraphrase, as long as you give
the right cue to the other actor,
that’s fine.

"But you have none of that
constriction when you work
with Burton, because his mind
is not constricted,” added
Steiger. “He’s not commercially
constricted, even though he’s
under incredible pressure.
Something people don’t realize
is that, when you are put in a
position where up to a $100
million is being spent, there is
the survival instinct of the hu¬
man being, and he will select
things to play safe and not even
know it, because of the pres¬
sure. Burton fights against that,
and I guess most of the people
in that cast have fought against
that all their lives.”

Steiger believes the fight, in
this case, was worth the effort.
“I had one of the best experi¬
ences ever,” he said. The result,
of course, is quite a bit different
from the style of theatrical real¬
ism which imbued the films that
first made Steiger famous. Not¬
ed Steiger, “You have live peo¬
ple; you have animated people;
you have digital people. It’s one
great big playing card, with the

continued on page 61

“Tim was insisting
on stop-motion,” said
co-producer Larry
Franco. “The smartest
thing was CGI.”

and star Jack Nicholson. Franco
has a long history of quality sci¬
ence fiction, fantasy and horror
films, having worked with John
Carpenter on THEY LIVE,
PRINCE OF DARKNESS, BIG
TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHI¬
NA. CHRISTINE, STARMAN
and ESCAPE FROM NEW
YORK. Franco also served as
co-producer on Burton’s BAT¬
MAN RETURNS and had just
wrapped JUMANJI when Bur¬
ton approached him on MARS
ATTACKS! Franco’s task was
to bring in the film on a decent
budget, without Burton having
to jettison more ideas.

“I was lucky." Franco said of
helping bring the Martian attack
in cost-effectively. " The timing
was perfect for me. The fact that
I knew Tim and ILM and that I
hud just come off of JUMANJI.
a movie that was substantially
heavy in computer-generated
images, was a big help. JU¬
MANJI wasn’t an influence that
was immediately apparent to
me, but within a few weeks 1 re¬
alized that the smartest thing for
us to do was to go with comput¬
er animation simply because in¬
tegrating stop-motion animation
with what we were doing was
just not happening.”

When Franco came on the
project. Burton and Gems had
trimmed so many of the stop-
motion effects that the total
amount of screen time left to the
little guys would have been
about 10 to 15 minutes.

“Nobody was really con¬
vinced. including Tim and my¬
self, that we had developed the
movie to a point where we
could make it work," said Fran¬
co. “There was a lot of testing;
we spent a lot of money and
weren’t getting anything that
proved they were going to be
able to take the stop-motion
puppets with the glass helmets,
animate them and incorporate
them into the movie where it
would look like they were actu¬
ally in the picture. Hut the test¬
ing went on. Everybody felt like
we were getting there.

“Tim was really insisting at
the time to go along with stop-
motion animation and see how
that looked. I had seen the early
stages of computer effects for
JUMANJI, and whether you’re
moving a model physically with
your hands, or if you’re manip¬
ulating an image on a screen
with a keyboard it's still frame-
by-frame animation. I'm sure,
intellectually, Tim knew that.

Nicholson in his dual role as Las Vegas real estate hustler Art Land,
an acting tour de force a la DR. 5TRANGELOVE.

21

ART DIRECTION

Designer Wynn Thomas on devising the sci-fi look.

By Steve
Biodrowski

Storyboard by Mlchaal Jackson showing the Martians' comeuppance at th« hands
of rock ’n' roll-blaring boom boxes. Left: Jackson's board of the Martian ship interior.

mum. to point up the graphic
aspect of each set, and to en¬
hance that graphic with color
where we possibly could. The
War Room is a clear example:
it's a very simple set in a way,
but at the same time it’s graphi¬
cally appealing, and the idea
was it would make the actors
stand out in the space, as op¬
posed to the scenery. Certainly,
a War Room could be filled
with computers and gadgetry,
but we decided to play against
all that and just keep the images
very simple."

Adding that he and Burton
opted for strong primary colors
wherever they could, Thomas
cited a couple of examples:
“Traditionally, Mars is red, but
usually it’s a dusty red or a
brick red. We used a primary
red. The first set in the film is a
Kentucky farm. We painted the
farm house bright green and the
barn a very bright red. So,
where we could get away with it
realistically, we went for broad,
bright colors; otherwise, we de¬
cided to emphasi/c the graphics
as opposed to the color."

Like everyone else involved
in the film. Thomas cited 1950s

sci-fi flicks as a primary inspi¬
ration for his work on MARS
ATTACKS. "Clearly, the Mar¬
tian interiors are more influ¬
enced by FORBIDDEN PLAN¬
ET than they are by 2001,” he
said. “I used a lot of research
material from '30s and '40s sci-
fi cartoons and graphics. That
stuff is more constructivist, al¬
most like Russian constructivist
architecture. The idea was to
create something in the spirit of
FORBIDDEN PLANET."

Despite the extravagant sets,
almost half the film was shot on
location. "The challenge there
was to find locations that were
already deteriorating, so that we
didn't have to go in there and
bomb-out a building," joked
Thomas. "We tried to find
buildings that were already on
their way to collapsing.” He
added, "Unlike INDEPEN¬
DENCE DAY. where the de¬
struction is very serious, the ef¬
fects of the Martian rays are not
quite as serious in MARS AT¬
TACKS: when they destroy
something, they destroy it very
beautifully, and the residue left
behind is very colorful.”

Thomas also found himself

designing Martian imple¬
ments, like the surgical
tools “used to hack up
their victims," he said.
"We had to invent quite a
few weapons, but we end¬
ed up using only two.
There was a time period
when we were designing
all kinds of things for the
Martians to use, because it
wasn't specified — the
script in the very begin¬
ning was very broad. All
those elements had to be
designed so that it made
some sense in terms of
their physical world. We deviated
very far from the cards, but there’s
a childlike spirit to the cards, and
that spirit is hopefully maintained
in the production design.

Despite trying to make some
sense of the Martian designs,
Thomas stated that aesthetics
were more ultimately important
than utility. "We always thought
of the Martians as very naughty
kids, so it’s playful, unsophisti¬
cated gadgetry,” he explained,
citing the ridiculously oversized
Martian Death ray aimed at one
unsuspecting old woman. “We
worked up the design of that
Martian Death Ray based on
one of Tim’s drawings," he
added. "Not that he disliked
what we were doing; he just had
a particular idea about it.”

For Thomas, the biggest
challenge of the movie was ty¬
ing the diverse settings together
into a consistent visual look.
"How do you make all the dif¬
ference pieces fit visually?" he
asked rhetorically. "Again, what
we tried to do was reduce all the
sets to the most simple, basic
image. That was an approach
we took in each world, with the

ointinticd (»it page 61

Working on MARS
ATTACKS "was a real¬
ly great opportunity to
do a lot of different
things and to use some
color in ways that you
don’t ordinarily use,"
according to production
designer Wynn Thomas,
but there was no con¬
scious effort to dupli¬

cate the look of the bubblegum
cards, “because Tim and I real¬
ized very early on from our dis¬
cussions that it would be hard
for all of the sets to have that
look that was indicated in the
cards. Part of the job of a pro¬
duction designer is to tic the
whole look of the movie togeth¬
er visually. It would have been
very hard to tie the White
House into that — you can’t
paint it some strange color in
order to match the look that was
in the cards.”

The approach that Burton
and Thomas took was neverthe¬
less based on the source. "If you
look at the cards, each one has a
primary graphic look that’s
making the statement,” said
Thomas. “So we decided to cre¬
ate each set very simply, to keep
the set decoration to the mini¬

22

<<l had a lot of freedom,”
Tim Burton noted.
“With ILM, I didn’t have
to do cumbersome
technical set-ups.”

ILM's CGI Martian Queen, with one of the many alien instruments
designed at the preproduction stage before the script was finalized.

hut hadn't been able to see it.”

To expose Burton to what he
had been missing. Franco went
to ILM and talked to some of
the JUMANJI animators, who
whipped up a little test of their
own on spec using the JUMAN¬
JI background plate filmed to
show the elephants trampling a
car. The animators substituted
Martians doing their thing to
the innocent little auto, and
Franco showed the results to
Burton. “It was enough to show
Tim that it was possible," said
Franco. "It also became appar¬
ent that we were going to be
able to do at least five times
more animation.”

With Burton convinced that
CGI could do more for his film
than the beloved stop-motion
animation, the fledgling produc¬
tion had to face yet two more
hurdles before the studio would
give the green light. "We had to
go back to the studio with the
new budget,” said Franco.

“First, it involved telling them
that we were going to change in
mid-stream, that we weren't go¬
ing to do what we set out to do,
that the look they had signed-on
for was going to be the same,
but it was going to be accomplished in a
different way. They had to swallow that
first. With that went a lot of money that was
already gone; the design of the Martians,
the set design, a lot of stuff was still usable,
but we had built and committed to a lot of
puppets that we weren’t going to use. We
had built facilities and had a bunch of
equipment that was intended for stop-mo¬
tion animation. And all of a sudden, we
were not going to do that.

“That was a hard pill for anyone to swal¬
low when you’ve spent money that's not
going to be used. But they felt our enthusi¬
asm. They saw the test and realized what

we were going to do. They trusted the fact
that ILM knew what they were doing, and
were going to do what they said they would
do. “The toughest part was me having to go
to the stop-motion people, which was a con¬
siderable number—about 60 people who
were involved, or were going to be in¬
volved—who were now unemployed."

Noted Burton, "In some ways, the tech¬
nique really doesn't matter. I wanted to go
for a ‘feeling’ of the stop motion that I grew’
up on. Now, we’re able to achieve that feel¬
ing in a few different ways. We would have
had more trouble with the stop motion.
With these characters, where there's a lot of

them and they all look the
same. I think it really worked
out for the best in this case.

“Part of the charm of stop mo¬
tion is that it’s an old-fashioned
medium. That’s what’s beauti¬
ful about it, but like every tech¬
nology it has its pluses and mi¬
nuses. It would have caused
more problems in terms of our
schedule. Once we got the
movie going, we had to move
fairly quickly. I like the ILM
people I’m working with.
They’re real easy to talk to.
Whenever we had complex
shots, they would he there on
the set. They arc people who
know what they're doing, but
they’re not so mired by the
technology. I had a lot of free¬
dom. That was a good thing
about this project, I really didn't
have to do much about cumber¬
some technical set-ups. I could
pretty much do whatever I
needed to do. It was really cool,
real easy.”

Franco admitted that the
production was fairly ambi¬
tious, but with the studio’s ap¬
proval of what the filmmakers
had in mind came a tight sched¬
ule that had to be met. "Once
the studio said okay on the movie,” noted
Franco, "the next thing they said was, ‘Can
we have it by Christmas?’ That took another
couple of weeks to figure out if that was
possible. Then we thought, 'Is it a Christ¬
mas movie?’ Yeah, it is, because it's a lot of
fun. It's an event movie. It’s huge! There’s a
lot of stuff in MARS ATTACKS! that is dif¬
ferent from a lot of movies. All the previous
computer animation has been driven to be
photo realistic. We haven't done that. This
movie has a whole different feel.

"On the one hand it’s huge. There’s
nothing cheesy about it. It has a cheesiness
in that it has the ‘feel’ of a ’50s sci-fi movie.

Burton s Martian spaceship borrows the look of FORBIDDEN PLANET (1956). Left: Scanning in the stop-motion puppets for CGI animation work at ILM

PIERCE BROSNAN

Suave James Bond on playing a clueless scientist.

Pierce Brosnan as the film's pipe-smoking professor is terminally clueless,
with a groundless yet unshakeable faith In the Martians until the bitter end.

By Frederick C. Szebin

In the star parade that passes
across the screen in MARS AT¬
TACKS!, each actor gets their
time in the spotlight before the
massacre moves merrily on.

Pierce Brosnan. the new James
Bond, plays Professor Donald
Kessler, a dim little scientist who
remains eternally hopeful of the
alien's intentions, hoping for a
new Renaissance even as he
stands in the midst of the scorched
remains of Martian fodder.

After his successful star turn
as Bond, it was the prospect of
working with director Tim Bur¬
ton that led Brosnan choose a
supporting role in a sci-fi inva¬
sion movie.

“He's the coolest guy in movies, 1 think,”
said Brosnan. “He's a unique talent. He
comes from a background in graphics and an¬
imation, and carries those sensibilities with
him into the work, the visuals. You become
part of his tapestry, his world, and he has a
great energy and a wonderful, wonderful eye
for what’s right, and a great car for dialogue."

As Kessler, Brosnan makes the mistake
of advising the President to greet the on¬
slaught of Martians with open arms. “And
of course,” said Brosnan. “they land and
blow the shit out of everybody.”

Even in the throes of war, love is in
bloom. Kessler falls for pop journalist
Nathalie Lake, played by Sarah Jessica
Parker. In the script, Parker's character is
identified as an MTV Tabitha Soren-typc,
but the filmmakers had to drop the video
music station’s moniker.

“MTV, you foolish people!” admonished
Brosnan. “Gonna have one of the coolest
movies of the year and you could have been
there. How the mighty grow. Anyway,
Sarah Jessica Parker and I have a love inter¬
est; she works on this fashion show and in¬
terviews Kessler. She thinks I’m a very cool
pipe-smoking dude.”

But the Professor is actually terminally
clueless, having a false faith in the invaders

to the bitter end. “He doesn't get it at all,"
said Brosnan. “He doesn't get it even when
his head is on a plate.”

The Martians decide to play erector set with
Kessler’s and Lake’s body parts for no other
apparent reason than to show that they can do
it. “My head is on a platter and her head is on
the body of a Chihuahua,” added Brosnan.
“You play the scene as a love story. You forget
everything else and play the scene, which is
about my love for this woman and it appears
that we’re going down in flames; *1 love you, I
love you.’And the rest is Tim Burton.”

The cast Burton pulled together is one of
the most impressive in film history, and de¬
spite all of his own personal success, film
buff Brosnan couldn't help but be struck by
the talent surrounding him. “My first day’s
work was in the Oval Office,” he said. "First
day, six-page scene. There was Jack, the
Man, as the President; there was Glenn
Close, young beautiful Natalie Portman, Mr.
Rod Steiger, Paul Winfield, Martin Short.
And yours truly. I was just gob-struck. Espe¬
cially when you do the master shot, then you
do all the close-ups and you look over and
there’s Jack behind the camera with all these
amazing actors. It was wonderful.

“He is one of our greatest actors," Bros¬
nan continued on Nicholson. “Whatever he
touches turns to gold. He’s mighty watch-

able, and his energy and pres¬
ence is big. Every time he
would come on the set they'd
play ’Hail to the Chief.’ It was
terrifying. You get terrified be¬
fore any job, every job. But this
particular job is filled with all
these people I respect, people
I’ve watched. So, I’m sitting
there with people I admire and I
don’t want to screw up. I'm sure
Jack felt it as well. You could
see it. When you work with
people who are that good and
talented, there's a certain giving
and an case. But, nevertheless
on the first day’s work I
thought, ‘What have I got my¬
self into? Why am I doing this?’
But you get the first take in the
can and you’re off and running."

His role in Burton’s homage to SF B-
movies is an addition to Brosnan's diverse
filmography which continues to grow with
his recently released remake of ROBINSON
CRUSOE, and the upcoming DANTE’S
PEAK. His own production company will
give the actor more roles to choose from to
broaden his performing prospects.

“I trained as an actor to do everything I
possibly could,” said Brosnan. “I never lim¬
ited myself, always seeing myself as a char¬
acter actor and not a leading man. All my
years in Hollywood, I suppose, made me a
leading man, but first and foremost I’m an
actor. Whether I’m playing a hero, or a sup¬
porting role it doesn't matter as long as it's
a good script with good people.

“I’ve had great fortune,” he continued.
“I never expected Bond to come around
again. It's been a glorious success which
comes with a lot of pressure because then
you have to rise to the occasion the next
time. You don't want to disappoint the audi¬
ence. I’m proud of GOLDENEYE. It took a
lot of hard work on everyone’s behalf, but
there’s a lot of other work I want to do.
When you go into something like MARS
ATTACKS!, when you're part of an ensem¬
ble, then the experience is richer. It feeds
you as an actor and you don’t get stale.” □

24

It's very simple in its design and
its very stark in its colors. It has
a feel of the *5Qs because basi¬
cally in the '50s they spent no
money in terms of detail. There
were black shapes and shadows,
where ours is very textured and
has a real awareness to it. but at
the same time it's not detailed to
the max. Some of the interiors
are. of course. It just has a ‘feel'
of the '50s movies. It ‘feels'
cheesy. There's a nice way to
say ‘cheesy’ and have it be a
good thing. The film has a
‘cheesy’ feel, but it's high class.

A top-drawer cheesiness,” Fran¬
co laughed.

With a firm technological
grasp of how to achieve his vi¬
sion. the next hurdle for Burton
and the production to face was
casting. Not since Stanley
Kramer's IT’S A MAD, MAD,

MAD, MAD WORLD in 1963
has such a huge cast of big
names been assembled for one
picture. Even with his reputa¬
tion in the industry for boxof-
ficc and critical hits. Burton had
trouble getting people together
for this particular project.

“Franco helped by coming up with prac¬
tical ways of executing these ideas on less
money,” said Gems. “Then Jack Nicholson
was a great help because there was a prob¬
lem getting the movie cast. We'd been
working for a year, and the technical prob¬
lems hud been solved. Initially, there were
casting problems because of the nature of
the story. But Jack Nicholson loved the
script. Because of hint we got the ball
rolling. The other actors signed on. The
movie is a little bit strange and the actors
would be nervous, but Nicholson wasn't
nervous. He built this wave and everybody
wanted to be in it."

Admitted Franco, “Actually it was a
lot easier than you think, because once

«They’re anarchistic,”
noted director Tim
Burton. “It’s not that
Martians are bad. They
are just having fun.”

Jack Nicholson as the President reacts to ILM‘s CGI effect of a
Martian probe. Inset: Probe pre-production sketch by J. Carson.

the word got out and people started hear¬
ing what kind of project it was—a lot of
cameos, a couple of weeks work with
Tim Burton on a big project—it was fair¬
ly easy to get everybody on the same
wavelength. Logistically it was tricky
working around people's schedules, but
in terms of getting people's interest, that
wasn't a problem at all. And the cast was
really having a great time, which made it
fun for us.

“I think the first two people to jump on
board were Pierce Brosnan and Sarah Jessi¬
ca Parker, then Lucas Haas and Sylvia Sid¬
ney. When Jack became involved, it became
a little bit easier. He lent stature to the pro¬
ject. I think one of the things people arc go¬
ing to want to see is Jack Nicholson us the

President of the United States."
But the intriguing cast aren't
the only stars of this picture.
The real feature players are,
let's face it, the Martians
themselves—skull-faced, big-
brained, green-skinned little
mcanies. Burton's idea of char¬
acter development and motiva¬
tion for the attacking Martians
is to view them as being totally,
'ell, alien. “Part of the energy
f doing this was trying to get
ic spirit of those Martians and
'hat they do.” said Burton.
Another thing that was intrigu-
lg was that these are characters
'ho you don’t really undcr-
tand. They don’t speak Eng-
sh, they do strange things. It’s
ke getting used to a new cul-
ire, thinking that you can fig-
re them out, but you can’t,
hat’s one thing I like about it.

“All of a sudden, you’re see¬

ing things from a new perspective. The sto¬
ry’s got that kind of mix. You think you un¬
derstand them, but then you don't. They're
very anarchistic that way. It’s not that
they’re bad. they’re just having fun."

Burton's intention had always been to
keep the Martian’s violence in check, not
wishing to cross the line into the hardcore
gore of the cards. Instead, the director

Right: In the Pentagon war room President Jack Nicholson prepares to shake hands with the Martian ambassador. Left: Nicholson’s President proves ineffectual

’5(ls sci-fi vio-

it Martians shooting
ray guns is removed,”
Burton said,“[Violence],
when it’s not rooted in
reality, is cathartic.”

Alien in disguise: Lisa Marie as the Martian girl, inset: Director
Tim Burton s design sketch tor the film's Queen ol Outer Space.

chose to depict a
lence; overstated, yet cartoon-
ish. Just how the MPAA ratings
board will react, though, was
anyone’s guess.

“In my heart, I don’t worry
about it," Burton said of facing
the infamous censors. “In reali¬
ty, I’m always nervous (about
getting a raling( because 1 feel
like things have gotten more ar¬
bitrary in certain ways. It’s hard
for me. I grew up watching
things like THE BRAIN THAT
WOULDN’T DIE on Saturday
afternoon television. There’s a
guy with his arm ripped off and
his blood smeared all over the
wall. I was eight years old
while watching this on TV. 1
never saw it as negative. I find
that stuff, when it’s not rooted
in reality, to be cathartic. I have
a personal problem with
movies that feature people
shooting guns at other people
and telling jokes. That’s a
whole separate style of movie.

“In MARS ATTACKS! with
Martians shooting ray guns and
turning people into skeletons. I
don't think that’s so harsh. To
me, it’s in the spirit of that old
style sci-fi. It's a little bit re¬
moved. I don’t think there’s go¬
ing to be a problem (with the ratings board),
but we’ll wait and see."

Noted Franco, “It’s not going to be as
gory as the cards because the cards were
presented as being a bit more serious than
this movie is. I think if you take what’s in
those cards and think of it as a joke, then
it’s not gory at all. That's what’s happen¬
ing with this movie. Yes, there arc ray
blasts, and yes, people are turned into
skeletons, and yes, things blow up. But I
don’t think ’gory’ is the word to use in de¬
scribing this movie. ‘Fantastic’ might be a
better word, or ‘fantasy.’

"We have apprehensions about the rat¬
ings board. You always have that because,
in regard to this film, you must get the joke.
If you get the joke and completely jump on
board with reckless abandon as all the cast
members did, then everything will be okay.
If you don’t get it, then there’s a problem;
there are people on fire, people turned into
skeletons, all that kind of stuff. I think
there’s a slight concern (about the rating],
but when you add some Danny Ulfman mu¬
sic, it won't seem so bad. The colors in this
movie are really bright and vivid, too. It’s
not dark and bloody, with guts.”

One thing that doesn’t seem to
have been too much of a con¬
cern for the production was the
great success of an earlier alien
invasion epic this past summer.
Without a firm grasp of what
exactly Burton and company
are planning with MARS AT¬
TACKS!, one is tempted to
think that after INDEPEN¬
DENCE DAY, any other inva¬
sion epic this year would sim¬
ply be redundant. But scribe
Gems puts the matter into per¬
spective. “I don’t think it mat¬
ters," he stated. “A year from
now. I’ll tell the whole truth
about it and people will be
shrieked. Something happened
that was unethical." When
pressed. Gems refused to elabo¬
rate further.

“ID4 was a fantastic show—I
loved the blow-ing up of Man¬
hattan,” he said. “That
movie was like a trail¬
er for MARS AT¬
TACKS!. We should
be very grateful! 1 en¬
joyed a lot of ID4. I
enjoyed STARGATE,
too—I like cheesy
films. It doesn't both¬
er me that ID4 is full
of holes, but that’s be¬
side the point. It doesn’t matter that the
aliens are Mac compatible. The fact that it’s
irrational is a lot of fun.

“I don’t think |the success of 104J w ill
be a bad thing for our movie. It’s the same
premise, obviously. The difference is
MARS ATTACKS! is a comedy. It has a
completely different feel. You could say it’s
like FAIL SAFE and DR. STRANGE-
LOVE—they’re completely different tilms
with the same premise and almost the exact
same story, treated differently [released
months apart in 1^64). People who see
STRANGELOVE would never think of

Jack Nicholson as the frazzled President James Dale, getting a Martian ultimatum from Lisa Marie in the White House. CGI effects by ILM

THE HAWK & THE DOVE

Paul Winfield on challenging Steiger’s warmonger.

Acting greats Paul Winfield and Rod Steiger as battling generals
are diametrically opposed in their response to the Martian Invasion.

By Steve Biodrowski

In MARS ATTACKS, each
character sees the impending
approach of the Martians not
from a global perspective but
through the prism of his or her
own particular philosophy —
whether it be scientific, meta¬
physical, or entrepreneurial. AH
human foibles are held up for
ridicule, as advocates of each
advance their personal theories,
only to see them fail miserably,
after which they meet a grue¬
some death. In the end. no one
has anything close to approach¬
ing the right answer, and only
dumb luck saves humanity.
Nowhere is this more evident
than in the dichotomy between
the United States President's
two top military advisers: the
hawkish General Decker (Rod
Steiger) and the peace-loving
General Casey, played by Paul
Winfield.

The debate, of course, is over
how to welcome the aliens —
whether with open arms or blaz¬
ing guns. It might seem that the
film is advocating a militaristic
approach, because, as its very ti¬
tle indicates, peace turns out to
be hardly a viable option. Did
Winfield feel as if his character
were merely set up to take a fall,
since his diplomatic approach
doesn’t work out? “Not many
things do — in life and in this
movie!” he said, adding, “Every¬
one has their expectations of
what this landing is going to
mean and how it’s going to
change their lives. That’s what
the whole movie is about. We
don’t spend a lot of time in the
Martian spaceship. It’s about
how the humans react in a myri¬
ad of different ways. I’m just one
aspect, but I’m part of a pair: the

hawks and the doves. And there’s
an element of personal ambition:
I’m trying to get Steiger out of
there. He represents the old-fash¬
ion way, and I think it’s a new
diplomatic age. I want his job!
But you can't come right out and
say that to a cranky old general.”

Winfield laughed at the de¬
scription of his character as
“peace-loving" and explained,
“I think I’m peace-loving in
contrast to Rod Steiger, who’s a
star ahead of me. He’s war-lov¬
ing: 'We should blow these
suckers out of the air!’”

Although he advocates diplo¬
macy, Winfield’s Casey does not
escape the carnage that engulfs
everyone else. “Arc you kid¬
ding?” he laughed. “I am one of
the first to die. I’ve died so many
times that it’s second nature. I'd
like to put together a reel of my
death scenes. I like to think it’s
because they can’t afford to pay
me! Or maybe it’s just that I
have gotten so good at it.”

When the Martians first
land, while a translation of the
Martian ambassador’s voice in¬

sists the visitors have come in
peace, Casey symbolically re¬
leases a white dove. Two Mar¬
tians fire on the dove, then turn
and blast a hole in the General’s
stomach. So much for peace!

If it's any consolation to paci¬
fists and diplomats, the warmon¬
gering General Decker, who ad¬
vocates the militaristic option
from the start, is no more suc¬
cessful than Casey at dealing
with the Martians: he ends up
miniaturized to pipsqueak size
and stomped to death by an alien
attacker. Said Steiger of the role,
“He’s real gung-ho: ‘America,
this and that!' He wants to kill—
go, attack, fight! In fact, Tim
came up to me in the scene
where the Martians step on me
and said, ‘The speech is a little
short. What can you do?’ So I
said the lines that were written
and then went on, 'The old glory
will wave, I promise you! We
will never lose—we will go on!
You will never conquer us or the
NRA!’ I had to get a shot at the
rifle association. I hope they
don’t cut it out.”

Although the on-screen char¬
acters may have been in
doomed conflict, behind-the-
scenes was exactly the opposite.
“It was like a play pen, actual¬
ly,” said Winfield of working
with the high-powered ensem¬
ble cast. “There was very little
tension on the set. Even though
there's $6t)-mitlion riding on
Jack Nicholson’s performance,
he didn’t seem phased by it. 1
might have a few worry lines
here and there!

“When they told me all the
people involved, it really turned
my head around,” he continued.
“It’s unusual to have an all-star
cast in a science-fiction romp.
Usually, the budget is spent on
the effects, so there’s very little
left over for any sort of leading
or respected actors in this sort
of thing—Sigourney Weaver, I
didn't mean that!”

What, if any, conclusions are
we to make about the futility of
human endeavor against over¬
whelming circumstances? Said
Winfield, “This particular script

continued on page 61

Paul Winfield Is peace-loving General
Casey. Is the resemblance to a recent
real-life Chief of Staff Intentional?

27

COMPOSER DANNY ELFMAN

On Burtonizing the golden sci-fi scores of the past.

By Frederick C. Szebin and
Steve Biodrowski

For Danny Elfman, former rocker and
now award-winning film composer extraor¬
dinaire, MARS ATTACKS! marks his sev¬
enth collaboration with Burton in a decade.
From PEE-WEE’S BIG ADVENTURE,
through BEETLEJUICE, Burton’s two
swings at the BATMAN legend and into
EDWARD SCISSOR HANDS and THE
NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS,
the visual and musical stylists have teamed
to help create some of the finest fantasy en¬
tertainment of the past ten years.

Away from Burton, Elfman has been no
slouch, scoring DARKMAN. DICK TRA¬
CY, DEAD PRESIDENTS, and earlier this
year, MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE and THE
FRIGHTENERS.

For MARS ATTACKS!, Elfman was
hired early on in the process and was able to
actually visit the set, a rare opportunity for a
composer who usually comes on a project
once filming has been done.

“You get to a certain point where, for
better or worse, you end up getting hired
way in advance," said Elfman of the film
composer’s lot. “More often than not these
days I end up getting hired like I did on
MiSSlON: IMPOSSIBLE, where I just
dropped in out of the blue. There was al¬
ready a rough cut. For MARS ATTACKS!,
they were shooting in Kansas and I got on
the set. It was fun."

Elfman admits that being involved in a
film so early doesn’t necessarily mean any¬
thing to the man who makes the music.
“I've never written a note from a script,”
the composer admitted. “I once tried and
thought I had all these great ideas and 1 saw
the rough cut of the movie and had to scrap
everything I’d done! I learned right then
and there that there’s absolutely no point.
You can take the same script, shoot it 20
different ways stylistically and get 20 dif¬
ferent scores. The music follows the image.

“As soon as I see the footage, 1 hear the
music," Elfman continued. “If I try to start
thinking of ideas early on it ends up just be¬
ing a waste of time. It might even be harm-

Danny Elfman, Tim Burton's Music Man, wrote
the scores from PEE-WEE’S BIG ADVENTURE
to THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS.

ful. It might get me thinking along a certain
line and the movie’s not that way. Then
there might be a tendency to want to force
something in that doesn’t really fit. I think
the best way is to empty my head complete¬
ly when I see a rough cut for the first time
and just look for those very spontaneous
ideas. I think the best stuff I get comes from
that approach. It’s still fun visiting the set.
You get an idea, an inkling of what you’re
up against, and if nothing else, it gets your
excitement up. I saw the Martians in an ear¬
ly rough cut while they were still filming. It
gave me a feel for the tone and pacing, like
on BATMAN—1 got to see an assembly of
the First half of the movie. It was enough to
get the feeling of Gotham, and Gotham was
what the tone of the BATMAN theme was
all about. In MARS ATTACKS!, it was the
same thing. I actually saw the Martians
hopping around a little. It was like, ‘Okay,
they’re frisky little critters. They’re not like
your typical, lethargic, slow-moving bugs.
They scoot around.’”

in previous collaborations with Burton,

Elfman would devise separate themes for
each main character. But MARS AT¬
TACKS! offers an ensemble cast and hopes
to recapture the feel of ’50s sci-fi movies.
In this case, the soundtrack required special
handling.

“I don’t imagine I’ll be doing any
themes for any of the characters," Elfman
said. “I don’t think there’ll be a President’s
Theme.* I think it’s going to be more the
tone of the film will be expressed through
the music, more as it might have been in a
classic science fiction movie. They general¬
ly didn’t give, in multi-character stories,
themes to individual characters. There
would be a theme that invoked alien inva¬
sion, there would be a theme that invoked
paranoia, or defeat, or conquering. The
score would be more broad-based, and if
there was a love story, there would be a love
theme. MARS ATTACKS! would be very
similar.

“It’s fun tapping into all the stuff I loved
while growing up,” Elfman continued on
the pulp-SF influences of MARS AT¬
TACKS! “For Jonathan [Gems] a favorite
would be EARTH VS. THE FLYING
SAUCERS, for Tim it might be MONSTER
ZERO, with me it’s THE MYSTERIANS,”
he laughed. “All these things are in there.
The beauty of the way Tim directs is at a
certain level of take-off, but very quickly
you see that it isn’t really. It’s very Tim. His
personality goes into the thing so strongly
that it becomes his own thing. That's why I
like MARS ATTACKS!; it’s the difference
between paying homage and a parody. Tim
is definitely paying homage to the concept
of these trading cards and the films he grew
up on, but he’s not doing a parody of the
films as much as he’s totally having fun
with it. In other words, ‘These are all of the
things I would have liked to have seen if I
were back then.”’

One key element to the sound and feel of
the science fiction movies back then was
the pre-synthesizer instrument called the
thcramin. Elfman realized that a proper
homage to those thrilling popcorn chillers
of yesteryear wouldn’t be complete without
this particular noise-maker.

28

Troops defend the White House. Elfman was inspired by THE DAY THE
EARTH STOOD STILL as a child to become a film composer.

“I wouldn't dream of going
into the session without a
theramin,* he said. “The score
that started me, that led me to
becoming a film composer, was
THE DAY THE EARTH
STOOD STILL. That was the
first film where I noticed the
music and was aware as a kid
that the music isn’t just there by
magic, that there was a name at¬
tached to it. 1 started to look for
that name. When 1 saw Bernard
Herrmann's name on other sci¬
ence fiction movies as 1 was
growing up 1 went, ‘Oh boy!
This is gonna be good!’ It was
an awareness that there was a
difference in the music; there
was a personality, an individual,
and it did make a difference.
When his music was in the
movies, they were better
movies! It would be inconceiv¬
able for me not to be paying
homage to that. What started the
whole thing was a flying saucer
movie, although a whole differ¬
ent kind of movie,” Elfman
laughed.

“My orchestratcr bought a
therumin recently,” Elfman con¬
tinued, “and for my birthday, he
bought me one as a kit and I'm
putting it together now. We've all
got our theramins! As a useful in¬
strument, it became cliched in
the ‘50s because it was the first
totally unique instrument to enter
the palette in an era before elec¬
tronic instruments. It was amaz¬
ing as something totally new. It
represented a new age. It didn't
sound like any instrument in the
orchestra. It’s understandable to
me why Miktos Rozsa and
Bernard Herrmann gravitated to

it very quickly. But, like anything
new, it became overused. Look at
drum machines. That started in
the ’80s and they still haven't
given it up.”

It’s never been a problem
with the music-driven Elfman
to work with the visually-driven
Burton, whose articulation in
music rates about nil. “The joy
of working with Tim is the inar¬
ticulation,'' said Elfman. “We’re
both intuition and sensibility-
driven people. I do less verbal¬
izing about the context of his
movies than anybody I work
with, yet we end up communi¬
cating very effectively on a
more instinctive level. Very of¬
ten, I see what he’s after; 1 get a
kind of look or attitude and I go,
‘I get it.’ When we’re on the
scoring stage I can just tell from
his body language. I’ll do a
take, sit down with the conduc¬
tor, go through about eight or
nine changes as we’re rehears¬
ing. Then Tim will say, ‘I have a
few notes.’ He’ll give me his
notes and I say, ’Yeah, I just did
all of those.”’

All a composer can hope for,
said Elfman, is that your vision
of the movie is as close to the
director’s as possible. “If your
sensibility is off, then you’ve
got a real problem and there's
no way around that. I might
have a little more of a direct
connection with Tim’s movies
because our sensibilities are
very close, as opposed to com¬
ing in cold on a project where I
don't know the director, his sen¬
sibilities, and 1 have to go
through the process of learning
them. □

££| don’t give a shit
how many films are
about aliens attacking,”
said Franco, “They’re not
even close to Tim’s.

FAILSAFE."

Noted Franco, “I think we
were aware of (ID4] from the
very first meeting I had. We
made sure to separate our¬
selves from that. From that
moment it became something
to think about, but—hey—Tim
Burton is Tim Burton. I don't
give a shit how many films arc
about aliens attacking the
earth. None of them are going
to be even close to what Tim
Burton's is. So, immediately
there wasn't a concern for me.
Once the studio heads saw ani¬
mation tests on the Martians it
was quite obvious that we
were going to be completely
different from INDEPEN¬
DENCE DAY. Anybody who
knows Tim would not be con¬
cerned that we were going to
make a movie just like some¬
body else’s.”

Burton was aware of the
competition from the start. “1
had heard about it [ID4] right
before we had started filming.
1 try never to get too involved
or interested in other things
when I’m developing some¬
thing because I’m making my
own thing. There wasn't a case
of the studios competing with
each other, like when someone

says, ‘We’re going to do vol¬
cano movies,* and everyone
races out with their own ver¬
sion of that idea. The studio
didn't show much concern
about [ID4] cither. I think they
feel confident, as I do. I haven't
seen INDEPENDENCE DAY,
so I don't really know. I’m con¬
cerned about making MARS
ATTACKS! I’m not really con¬
cerned about another movie.”

Special effects had been
shooting since Warners gave
Burton and Franco the go-
ahead. To help the actors when
dealing with the Martian men¬
ace on a one-on-one basis a few
costumes were whipped up for
stand-ins to wear as effects ref¬
erence points. “They actually
had the hardest job,” Burton
said of the stand-ins. “I have to
hand it to them. They were
amazing. It kind of reminded me
of HOWARD THE DUCK at
times. It was basically like try¬
ing to direct Disneyland charac¬
ters, but with hardcore action.”

Burton said he was awed to
be working with such a high-
powered cast. “You have to won¬
der what the hell you're doing
with all these great performers.
They made it fun. I had a great
time. I really enjoyed seeing

Planning the defense of Earth, in keeping with the movie’s bubblegum card
inspiration, director Tim Burton sought bold, striking set designs.

29

mm

MICHAEL J. FOX

Marty McFly on dabbling in another sci-fi universe.

By Frederick C. Szebin

In MARS ATTACKS!,

Michael J. Fox plays vain
Global News Network reporter
Jason Stone, one of the first to
witness the Martian onslaught
first hand. “It's kind of fun to
play a character who’s sup¬
posed to report on what’s hap¬
pening and is really much more
concerned with himself and his
hair,” said Fox. “And his hair,
by the way, is perfect. Winds
blow, my clothes are falling off,

Martians arc landing, explo¬
sions arc happening and his hair
is perfect. Joey Zapata, the hair
artiste, in order to secure my
hair like this, used all kinds of
things that I don't even want to know the
source of. There’s probably newt saliva and
all kinds of crap in there.”

Fox didn’t have the chance to research
his role of vacuous TV reporter due to tim¬
ing conflicts with his ABC scries SPIN
CITY, but the actor admitted to having no
problem in finding his character. “When I
got to work [on MARS ATTACKS!) I was
thinking, ‘ Boy, I should go and follow some
reporter around and do all that stuff,* then I
thought, ‘Nah, 1 know who these dints are.’
They’re such idiots and we're forced to
watch them every day. They have no clue
what's happening. I can relate to that.”

Director Tim Burton and screenwriter
Jonathan Gems refused to give the Martians
reasons for doing what they do, basically
slating, “They are who they are, they do
what they do.” But Fox, for his own peace of
mind, has his personal reason for the attack.

“Cause we’re bored,” he stated. “The
human race is bored. We’re waiting for the
next thing, and it might as well come from
space. 1 really think that’s it. There’s so
much going on in the world right now that
we don’t want to deal with. That’s why
movies exist, to take us to another place, to
put us in situations that we’ve never seen
and can’t imagine. But that’s a very short
list, because we’ve seen it all. A Martian at¬

tack is one thing we haven't seen. This
movie has got a great cynicism. One person
thinks, ‘Oh. this is wonderful, the Martians
are coming,’ and someone else says, *Nah,
they’re gonna blow our asses away.’ And
you know, we deserve it. We have it coming
to us. We’re scum. ‘Die, Earthling scum.’”

Fox’s decision to do the movie, like so
many of the other cast members, came
down to two words—Tim Burton. “How
many chances in your life are you going to
get to work with somebody like Tim Bur¬
ton?” he said. “When 1 told my seven-year-
old son that I might do this Tim Burton
movie, he flipped out. He knows Tim’s
whole resume. He read it off to me, includ¬
ing FRANKENWEENIE. My son would
have killed me if I didn't do it.

"Another reason is, as a kid, one of my fa¬
vorite movies was IT’S A MAD. MAD,
MAD, MAD WORLD, and the idea of being
in a film like that, where you just never know
who’s going to pop up and what’s going to
happen to them was really an exciting
prospect. Those things combined, and the fact
that it was pretty easy for me to do; it’s just a
couple days here and there. I couldn’t resist it.

Fox compared working with Burton to
directors Bob Zemeckis (BACK TO THE
FUTURES 2 & 3) and Peter Jackson (THE
FRIGHTENERS). Noted Fox, “They have

two things in common; one is
that they’re incredible visionar¬
ies. You get within about two
feet of their heads and you can
hear the humming. And the oth¬
er is that they're all really nice
guys, real approachable.”

Fox noted that it was amaz¬
ing to work amid a cast of such
seasoned pros. “The amount of
experience this crew has had is
astounding," said Fox. “They’ve
been all over the world. To me,
it’s like an episode of THE
LOVE BOAT. I worked about 10
days all together, spread out
over about a month, so it's a
pretty tight experience for me.
Everybody on this picture had
what they describe in the mili¬
tary as the 10,000-yard stare. Everybody
looks like they've been through it. We were
on the set and, I swear to God, a miniature
tornado comes flying through the set! No¬
body moved, they just covered their coffee.
They’re really hard.”

Because of his experience with Zemeck¬
is and Jackson, Fox had become adept at
acting to virtually nothing where special ef¬
fects would later fill the space. Burton, he
noted, was particularly good at helping him
visualize the non-exisient threats, the most
unnerving of which was his own on-screen
demise. “In this whole parade of familiar
actors,” said Fox, “I believe I’m the first
one to just get his crap completely blown
away. I don’t last long. It’s really exciting
and I think it’ll be a great sequence. I’ve
heard Tim describe it several times, and
there’s nothing like having Tim Burton
gleefully describe your demise to you to
really make your day; *Oh, it’ll be great!
You’ll run along and you’re blown up and
your arm will fly off.’

“This is really a cool movie,” Fox summed
up. “This has been a great experience. I can't
wait to sec this. Here’s a feeling of being part
of an event. It’s one of those movies that I
would go see if I wasn’t in it, and that's a short
list. The list of movies that I’m in that I’d go
see is an even shorter list.”

30

“The movie and the
cards have a Christmas
spectrum,” Burton said
of the release date. “Red
planet, green deathray!”

Mars Needs Woman: an image of Sarah Jessica Parker as fashion channel
reporter Natalie Portman with her dog conjured up In the Martian space ship.

these people work. They all had
such good spirits. I had all these
great actors running through a
field screaming. There’s some¬
thing funny about that.

“I was very, very lucky
working with these people. It
was something nobody will
sec, but I will never, ever forget
it; all these great actors acting
to absolutely nothing. It’s like
when you were a kid playing
pretend—watching these peo¬
ple who are Academy Award-
winners, some of them just act¬
ing to nothing. I had no real
hard-core Method people. ‘1
can't see the Martians! Where
are they? What's my motiva¬
tion?’ Being chased by little
green men, that's your motiva¬
tion! Everybody got into it and
they were great. It made film¬
ing a real pleasure. It was truly
surreal to sec all these people
in a room at the same time.”

The production went as
smoothly as such a large pro¬
duction can be expected to
go. Only one tight situation
really stuck out in producer
Franco’s mind as making the
production a trying time.

“One of our biggest endeav¬
ors was to be out in the Arizona location
where the Martians first land on Earth.
Logistically, it was a tough deal getting
there, setting up. We had to feed all these
people. We were in a dry lake bed in the
red rock desert outside Kingman, Ari¬
zona. In Arizona, there’s a Holiday Inn, a
Day's Inn; there’s not a lot around. We
were busing people in from Las Vegas.

“It was really hot. It rained out there
for like the first time in 160,000 years!
We ended up losing about three days be¬
cause of the weather. We wanted to shoot
there earlier, but we were afraid it was
going to be too cold in the desert. We

ended up deciding to shoot later in the
schedule when the weather was okay, but
then it rained.”

With the speeded-up schedule. MARS
ATTACKS! and a locked-in mid-Decem¬
ber release date looming, making the
process of audience previews problemat¬
ic. “The problem with a movie like this,
and I’ve been through it so much—I even
went through it on BEETLEJUICE—is
that my previews have never gone well,”
admitted Burton. “The preview audience
will only see a movie like this with half-
finished effects. I’ve never shown a pre¬
view audience a movie like that.“When I

saw JASON AND THE ARG¬
ONAUTS I was blown away. I
feel so lucky to have been in
that time. If that were now, I
wouldn’t have walked into
that theater without knowing
how everything was done. I
just feel so lucky that I got to
see it the way it was meant to
be seen. It’s unfortunate in our
culture that filmgoers know
too much, in a way. I would
have killed to see how it was
done, but after the fact, not
before.

"It’s something we have to
show people, but I'm going to
make it as late as possible. I'm
not against previews, because
you can always tell little things,
like if a joke is working or not.
I don’t mind making changes,
but you want to make sure that
the changes you make are based
on some foundation. But how
can you expect someone in the
preview audience to say some¬
thing’s not working when
there’s so much that’s not in the
movie yet. It’s a process that’s
just going to have to be as de¬
layed as much as possible.
We’re going to be cutting shots
until the very last day. I'm ener¬
gized by working on the movie. I’m very
impressed with the way the effects are turn¬
ing out. Being a stop-motion man myself.
I’m really impressed by what the CGI peo¬
ple arc doing. It's at a point where it’s really
incredible right now.”

All that remains is to answer the ques¬
tion, is MARS ATTACKS! really fit to be a
Christmas movie? “Absolutely!” answered
Burton. “I like fantasy-sci-fi. The spirit of
the movie is not as horrific as the cards.
But the cards too—you can look at the col¬
ors and they do kind of have a Christmas
spectrum!” Burton laughed. “Red planet,
green death ray!”

attempts

to

open the lines of communication amid the charred

skeletal remains of Congress.

Glenn Close (left) as First Lady Nathalie Lake. Right, Brosnan

Special

effects

ILM shows off CGI to
stop-motion fan Burton.

Industrial Light and Magic ‘s CGI Martians blast the U.S. law-maken
ILM demonstrated the advantages o! CGI to Tim Burton, a long-time advocate of

By Steve Biodrowski

When Industrial Light and
Magic was first approached to
work on Tim Burton’s MARS
ATTACKS, they were asked to
composite stop-motion Mar¬
tians with live-action footage of
the all-star cast. “I just saw a lot
of trouble,” said effects supervi¬
sor Jim Mitchell of that ap¬
proach. “There were so many
technical issues, so many hur¬
dles they were going to have to
overcome. The fact that Tim
wanted to shoot the film in
anamorphic was presenting a
problem for the stop-motion
guys, who don’t usually shoot
in Panavision. There were is¬

sues of being able to do camera
moves with the live-action; they
were going to have to do all the
tracking in the camera in the
computer, anyway. At that
point, you’re in the realm of
creating a completely synthetic
set that matches the live action,
so we might as well put the
Martians in there and start ani¬
mating around all the different
characters played by Jack
Nicholson, Tom Jones, and
everybody. You almost get all
that compositing technology for
free by rendering the Martians
in the computer."

At the time, Mitchell and
Mark Miller, the visual effects
producer, were already working
with MARS ATTACKS! pro¬
ducer Larry Franco on their
previous effort, JUMANJI, sup¬
plying rampaging computer
generated animals. While fin¬
ishing post-production on that
film, they decided to pursue the
idea of creating the Martians
with computer graphics, as
well. “We started a little test,"
recalled Mitchell. “We didn’t
have any concept artwork at
that point, but the trading cards
are out there — they’re your best
model sheet around. We built a
Martian in the computer and
put it in a little background we
had. The idea was that, in addi¬
tion to compositing, we could
present the possibility that we
could do the Martians when
they were in the exterior, live-
action environment. We
showed Larry some stuff while
he was still here working on
JUMANJI, and then we pur¬

sued it even further with an ad¬
ditional test, which got a little
bit more elaborate with the
Martian model."

One hurdle was convincing
director Tim Burton to aban¬
don his beloved stop-motion
for a type of effect he was not
certain was aesthetically ap¬
propriate for the job. Said
Mitchell, “Certainly, there’s a
quirkiness to how things move
in stop-motion that just hap¬
pens by the nature of how you
shoot it, frame by frame, but
what we wanted to impress on
Tim was that you don’t have to
lose that just because you’re
doing it in the computer, that
we could retain a lot of that
quirkiness even while animat¬
ing it in the computer. Much of
what Tim doesn’t like about
the computer is that every¬
thing’s so graceful and
smooth, but in the hands of the
right animators, you can still
develop the characters and

make them whatever you want,
Tim’s idea of these things was,
basically, that they’re a force
of nature and they have a rep¬
tilian nature about them.
That’s what we tried to put in¬
to our tests, and it worked.”

The original plan called for
interiors of the Martian space¬
ships to be shot with the stop-
motion Martians on miniature
sets—which meant, theoreti¬
cally, that no compositing
would be necessary. However,
even in this case, there were
advantages to CGI. Mitchell
pointed out, “Ultimately, a lot
of the interiors of the space
ships would require many ef¬
fects. Even if they’d done it
stop-motion, with today’s tech¬
nology, a lot of it was going to
end up in the computer. Once
we decided to do the Martians
in the computer, a lot of things
became more efficient, like
that fact that they were shoot¬
ing rays in almost every shot. It

Stepping on a victim of their
miniaturization, ILM's Martians
squashed Burton's stop-motion plans.

32

Visual effects supervisor Jim Mitchell on the miniature Martian spaceship set.

,, Originally approached to do the composites of stop-motion Martians,
stop-motion, who produced puppet feature THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS.

was like turning on a switch for
us to say, ‘Blast the green ray
here and blast the red ray
there. 1 In stop-motion, one hur¬
dle they had was that every
time they wanted to animate
the head, they were going to
have to remove the glass hel¬
met of their space suits. That
wasn’t an issue for us at all. We
were able to recreate the glass
and the reflections off the
glass, and we wouldn’t have to
take off the helmet to move an
eyebrow!"

Although the stop-motion
approach was abandoned,
much of the pre-production
work, including production
design and the miniature Mar¬
tian sets, found its way into
the film. “A lot of that had
been set in place before we
even got involved," explained
Mitchell. "They were in pro¬
duction a few months at the
point we were awarded the
job, so a lot of that stuff was

already being built by the
stop-motion animators. They
had built this quarter-scale
ship model. We still had to
look at it like it was just an¬
other live-action set. We shot
all the background plates of
the ship with a motion-control
camera, so that we were able
to track all the camera infor¬
mation. Basically, we still
were able to use the puppets in
the sense of blocking out
where they would be and what
the camera framing would be.
We went from the storyboards,
a little crude animatic of the
puppets inside the quarter
scale model, and that gave us
a lot of the lighting cues that
Pat Sweeny, our director of
photography on the miniature
stuff, shot. We approached it
very much like it was just an¬
other live-action set, except it
was quarter scale.”

Working in the Martian envi¬
ronment was quite different

Hit s an indication of
incredible things to
come,” noted ILM’s
Steve Williams. “Now
nothing’s impossible . 55

from having the aliens interact
with Earthlings. Said Mitchell,
“That was a very enjoyable part
of creating the Martians: you
had almost two different char¬
acterizations—when they’re on
the space ship, they’re in their
own environment. They take on
a different attitude—more laid
back, kicking back in their
chairs, watching the television.
There’s almost another movie,
when we just watch the Mar¬
tians at home. The work that
we’ve done on the interior
space ship becomes more pure
animation at that point. Their
interaction of sitting in chairs
and picking up objects is almost
pure CG, except for the actual
background plate. We built
some seventy computer graph¬
ics models, not just Martians
but elements that they’re react¬
ing with and any props they’re
holding onto, like these little
surgical instruments—whereas
if you did that in live-action
you'd be pulling some element
on a string; you get more in¬
volved in physical effects to
make the Martians interact with
the live-action set.”

When it came to creating
these interactive CGI props,
ILM was allowed to embellish
on the designs that were already
in place. “Tim’s given us a lot
of freedom to develop these
characters and add to what al¬

ready existed," said Mitchell.
“We got involved in designing
different apparatuses for the
Martians. For instance, when
they are putting on their suits,
they get into this huge, crushing
cylinder, and they pop out as
suited Martians, We just came
up with designs, and it was easy
to follow what had previously
been done. Our art director,
Mark Morris, is an avid fan of
’50s sci-fi flicks; he’s a walking
encyclopedia of films like
EARTH VS. THE FLYING
SAUCERS. Obviously, you
take a lot of your cues off that,
because Tim does as well. Any
time we had the chance to come
up with something new. there
was a lot of basis for it in those
old, classic films. You never
had a chance to deviate from
what Tim had already imagined.
It all came from a design stand¬
point; Tim’s really strong in de¬
sign."

Mitchell concluded, “It was
a big attraction for me to do a
project like this with Tim Bur¬
ton, to have the thrill of doing
this stuff, taking these charac¬
ters and making them come
alive. Hooking up with Tim
Burton, it’s real easy to get in¬
volved in how these characters
act and run. It was a big oppor¬
tunity to show Tim that comput¬
er graphics were going to be the
way." □

!

Below: Martian puppet used for computer graphics reference. Right: Efects cinematographer Pat Sweeney. MHchell! and gaffer Michael Olague shoot plates

The master of

By Lawrence French

WARNING! SCREAM contains many
suspcnscful and frightening scenes, some of
which arc discussed in this article. If you
wish to be totally surprised by the film's
shocking secrets, please do not read this ar¬
ticle until after viewing the film.

When was the last time you saw a really
scary movie? For both director Wes Craven
and first-time screenwriter Kevin
Williamson, it has been far too long, and
something they intend to rectify when their
new terror talc, SCREAM is unveiled by
Miramax/Dimension Films, on December
20th.

For Williamson, the script came to life
when he was faced with a very scary situa¬
tion of his own: he was broke and needed
money to make his rent and car payments.
“I had sold my first script, KILLING MRS.
TINGLE, to Interscope,” said Williamson,
“but it got bogged down in development
hell. Then, my unemployment had run out
and I desperately needed money. 1 had al¬
ready written an opening sequence for a
movie, which was really terrifying, so I
thought, ‘If I just add a story onto this 25
page sequence, I could probably sell it to
Roger Corman for $5,000.’ 1 had friends
who were making Corman films, and 1 had
even acted in a couple of them, so that was
my initial game plan."

Luckily for Williamson, the quality of
his finished script (which was initially titled
SCARY MOVIE), was on a much higher
level than a Roger Corman low-budget pro¬
duction, and it quickly became a hot item in
Hollywood's executive suites. "I had the
story already in my head," said Williamson,
“so I just sat down and wrote it over a long
weekend. It's a spin on all these slasher
horror films, and I filled it with a lot of in¬
side stuff that I think horror movie experts
will really appreciate. But I didn’t think my
agents would quite get it. In fact, I was too
scared to give it to the head agent, so I gave
it to the junior agent, instead. They felt we
could do a lot better than Roger Corman,
and it w'ould probably sell for big money.
They sent it out on a Monday morning, and
by Tuesday, a bidding war had broken out
between Paramount, Oliver Stone's Ixtlan
productions, and Miramax.”

When the dust had settled, Williamson

horror pulls out all the stops one last time.

Wes Craven directs actress Neve Campbell as feisty heroine Sydney Prescott
—the inheritor of the Jamie Lee Curtis role in a homage to HALLOWEEN.

took a $500,000 offer from Mi¬
ramax, far more than he ever
anticipated. “Actually, Oliver
Stone offered us more money,”
said Williamson, “but I went
with Miramax, because they
had this new label. Dimension
Films, dedicated to making
genre films, and 1 felt that the
script had a better chance of
getting made with them. If
Oliver Stone or Paramount
bought it, it could easily have
gotten lost in the studio devel¬
opment process.*’

Williamson, who grew up in
rural North Carolina, developed
an early interest in horror films
after seeing three seminal pic¬
tures. “I saw PSYCHO and
HUSH, HUSH. SWEET CHAR¬
LOTTE on television when I was very
young," recalled Williamson. “Then, when
\ was 10, 1 went to see HALLOWEEN at
the theater. Everybody was talking about it,
calling it the scariest movie since PSY¬
CHO, and I really responded to it. I loved
the effect HALLOWEEN had on the audi¬
ence. The way they were screaming for
Jamie Lee Curtis; ‘Look out behind you!’ or
‘Don’t drop the knife!' I put all that kind of
thing into SCREAM.

“It was HALLOWEEN that started my
infatuation with Jamie Lee Curtis. I fol¬
lowed her through THE FOG to TERROR
TRAIN and PROM NIGHT. All of those
movies found their way into SCREAM. I
tried to take little bits and pieces of other
movies and put them into play in our movie.
In the opening sequence. I have Drew Bar¬
rymore popping popcorn, just like Annie is
doing in HALLOWEEN. But I also kept
thinking, ‘How can 1 make this different?’ I
didn’t want it to be just another teenage
horror movie about a bunch of babysitters,
so 1 started coming up with all these differ¬
ent characters, and the idea that the kids
have seen one too many horror films.
They’ve all seen every HALLOWEEN and
FRIDAY THE 13TH movie every made.’’

When Miramax purchased Williamson's
script, they kept the writer intimately in¬
volved with the project, soliciting his opin¬
ions on directors and casting. “Miramax re¬
ally treated me well,” enthused the author.
“It's so unusual for a writer to be treated

that way, because usually the writer is the
first person who is asked to leave. But Mi¬
ramax would call me and tell me what they
were planning at every step of the game.
Initially, there were many different direc¬
tors who were mentioned, Robert Ro¬
drigue/., Danny Boyle and George Junng,
among them. Finally, 1 got a call one Satur¬
day morning from Bob Weinstein (the co-
chairman of Miramax), and he said. 'I’ll
give you Wes Craven.* I was really thrilled
by that, because I really loved NIGHT¬
MARE ON ELM STREET. 1 had first met
Wes the day after 1 sold the script to Mira¬
max. before he was involved in directing it.
I went over to Miramax to meet everybody,
and Wes was there, because he was working
on a re-make of THE HAUNTING. I asked
Cary Woods, our producer, to please, please
introduce me to Wes. I was very excited,
because Wes had already read the script,
and he said to me, ‘I liked your script. 1
thought it was scary.’”

Ironically, Craven initially turned the
script down when it was first offered to him
by Miramax. “1 had a certain ambivalence
about doing a genre script that was very
hard-hitting,” explained Craven. “1 was in¬
terested in branching out, and doing some¬
thing a little more mainstream, which is
why THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE
was so attractive to me. Then, when Mira¬
max decided not to go ahead with THE
HAUNTING, I thought, ‘This is really
crazy. SCREAM is a very strong script, just

go back to your roots and do
what you do best.’ I felt like do¬
ing something wild and really
scary, and not worrying about
my image. There was a voice
telling me, ‘You’ve got to do
this.’The other thing was the
shock of Miramax not going
ahead with THE HAUNTING.
We were all set to do it, and I
thought they really wanted to
make it. So it was a combina¬
tion of those two events. Then I
told my agent to call Bob Wein¬
stein back and see if we could
still make a deal.”

A mere two weeks after he
sold his script, Williamson was
busy on a revision, adding some
additional thrills to the story¬
line. “I had played down the
horror and the gore of it,” said Williamson,
"because I had written the script to sell. On
paper having a girl running from a killer for
five pages doesn't work. So I filled it with
dialogue, and all the kinds of things that I
believe got it sold. During the rewrite, I
added another murder, at Bob Weinstein's
request. There was a segment in the middle
where nobody gets kilted for 35 minutes,
and Bob said, ‘I just don’t think we can do
that.' So I came up with a way of having the
principal killed. Originally, he was just a
red herring, but now he gets eliminated ear¬
ly on. Henry Winkler plays the principal, so
it was really great having Fonzie in the part.
It also propels us to the end of the movie,
when there’s a big horror movie party going
on at Matthew Lillard’s house. We thought
it would be fun to have alt these kids at the
house, but then we needed to get rid of
them, so we could get back to our core
group of characters. By having the principal
killed, we accomplished that, because all
the kids want to go look at his corpse
strung-up on a goal-post down at the high
school.”

When Wes Craven came back to the pro¬
ject, most of the script revisions had been
completed, and the director felt his only real
job was to visualize the script. “The princi¬
pal’s murder was added before I came on,"
noted Craven, “and I didn't make any major
changes, except to the ending which was
still somewhat in flux. So we fiddled with
that a little, but this screenplay, more than

35

Henry Winkler as Principal Hlmbry loses his cool
with a student, a red herring—or is he the mad
killer? In SCREAM everyone’s a suspect.

any other I've directed by another writer,
was ready to go. It was very well construct¬
ed, and everyone responded to it extremely
well. The lines fit very well into the mouths
of all the actors, although we did do little
line changes that came out of the first read¬
ings, but it was nothing significant. That
was always one of the strengths of the
screenplay; it was very clever and tightly
knit. It was a real pleasure to be able to sim¬
ply concentrate on directing the script, and
not have to worry about fixing it. Kevin was
on the set a lot, and he's been one of our
greatest fans.”

Being a big admirer of Craven's work,
Williamson was initially somewhat in awe
of the director, but quickly got over that
when it came time to lighten the script.
“Wes and I sat down and broke the script in¬
to pieces," said Williamson. “The story
stayed pretty much intact, but we added
some scares, and shortened it. Wes re¬
worked some of the action sequences, and
we would argue and go back
and forth, but there’s a point
where I had to realize that Wes
is more experienced than I am.

This is my first produced
screenplay, so I took the oppor¬
tunity to learn and listen. We
had a great collaboration, and I
learned a lot from seeing Wes,
not only working on the set, but
later in the editing process, see¬
ing what it takes to bring a
movie to life.”

With a first rate script fin¬
ished and ready to shoot, Mira¬
max and Craven began their
casting search, and managed to
attract a group of talented

young thespians to the film, usually one of
the weakest links in genre movies. As
Craven pointed out. doing a film with most¬
ly teenagers, you're locked into a certain
age bracket. “You’re always going to be
getting people who are relatively early into
their careers,” said Craven. “In this case, I
was really struck by how supportive Mira¬
max was in going for relatively well-known
and highly paid actors. Courteney Cox was¬
n’t cheap, and some of those kids brought
considerable fees to the budget. Neve
Campbell has been acting a long time, so al¬
though she’s young, she has a lot of experi¬
ence and had done a lot of serious work.
Skeet Ulrich has already done four pictures,
including a leading role in Paul Schrader’s
TOUCH. There were a lot of other actors
who would have been much cheaper than
Skeet, but nobody could nail the role like he
did. When Skeet came in, suddenly six
weeks of casting went out the window, be¬
cause he really understood the part. It was a
lot more money, but well worth it. Usually,
the studio says, ‘Here's your casting budget,
get whoever you can.’ So, even if you can
get somebody who has a lot of potential, like
a Johnny Depp, if it’s his first movie, he's
not going to be nearly as good as he'll be
five years later. We were lucky to get kids
who were already very experienced."

Author Williamson didn't have any ac¬
tors in mind when he was writing the script,
but he was quite pleased with the final cast
that Miramax assembled. "There’s not one
weak link in the performances,” said
Williamson. “Across the board they all de¬
liver really strong characterizations. That’s
great, because it's an ensemble piece, and I
was playing with this idea from PROM
NIGHT, which is that, one by one, all these
kids start getting killed off. It becomes a
sort of guessing game, where you slowly
eliminate suspects as they die. Everyone in
the movie is a suspect. The girl's father, her
boyfriend, the sheriff, the janitor. We man¬
age to point the finger at everyone.”

For the film's central role of Sidney
Prescott, the feisty heroine who Williamson
modeled after Jamie Lee Curtis in HAL¬
LOWEEN, Craven selected Neve Camp¬

tt HALLOWEEN began
my infatuation with
Jamie Lee Curtis. I
followed her from THE
FOG to TERROR TRAIN
and PROM NIGHT. 99

—Scripter Kevin Williamson—

bell, star of the TV series, PARTY OF
FIVE. Sidney is ostensibly the terrified vic¬
tim of the killer, but could the shock of wit¬
nessing her mother being brutally butchered
have turned her into a schizophrenic per¬
sonality?

Skeet Ulrich, who, like scripter Kevin
Williamson, grew up in North Carolina,
was chosen for the role of Billy Loomis,
Sidney's boyfriend and the first person to
become a suspect in the mysterious slay¬
ings. Could Billy be a dangerous psy¬
chopath who unknowingly terrorizes his
own girlfriend?

The services of Courteney Cox, from the
hit TV show FRIENDS, were enlisted to
play Gale Weathers, a television news re¬
porter who ruthlessly pursues the story of
the small town killings. Gale never seems to
be far from the murder scene. Is she just a
good reporter, or could she be attempting to
create some news of her own?

Drew Barrymore plays Casey Becker, an
innocent teenager at home alone when she
becomes the first victim in the series of
gruesome homicides. But is Casey really
dead?

Deputy Dewey Riley is enacted by
David Arquette, who played the young
Robert Duvall role in DEAD MAN'S
WALK, the prequel to LONESOME
DOVE. As a law officer, he would seem to
be above suspicion, but could Deputy Riley
be investigating his own crimes?

For the role of Stu Maker, a high school
pal of Billy and Sidney’s, Craven cast
Matthew Lillard, whose past films in¬
clude HACKERS and SERIAL
MOM. Stu seems like a slightly
confused but normal teenager.
Could that confusion be con¬
cealing the symptoms of a para¬
noiac?

Sidney’s best friend, Tatum
Riley, is played by Rose Mc¬
Gowan, who gained kudos in
the bizarre cult hit THE DOOM
GENERATION. Could Tatum
be hiding an insane jealousy of
Billy?

Newcomer Jamie Kennedy
plays Randy, who works at the
local independently owned
video store (having been fired
from Blockbuster). His favorite

The masked killer ol TERROR TRAIN, the 1980 slasher film that served In part
as the inspiration for Kevin Williamson to script SCREAM’S masked murderer.

VI

36

The opening scene, after Drew Barrymore’s murder, Sidney (Neve Campbell)
helps boyfriend Bill (Skeet Ulrich) through her window. But is he the killer?

fare is gory slasher films. Could
having seen one too many hor¬
ror flicks have sent Kandy over
(he edge?

Although Williamson didn't
write the script with any actors
in mind, he remembers getting
early suggestions on casting
from people who read his script.

“1 showed it to my brother,” re¬
called the writer, “and his first
thought was, ‘You know who
could plav the lead? That girl on
PARTY OF FIVE.’ He didn't
know her name, but he thought
she would be great. Then a
friend of mine said to me, 'You
know who would be good as
Stu? That guy Matthew Lillard
who played Drew Barrymore’s
friend in MAD LOVE.’ So two
of the actors who were first
mentioned to me, ended up in
the movie, which I thought was
really interesting."

Craven felt his final cast
were among the best actors he’s
ever worked with. “They’re all
incredibly gifted and are really
going all out," said the director.

“They were a real source of en¬
ergy and inspiration. We all got
along well together and every¬
one was very committed to the
project. There’s always the po¬
tential for star tantrums, some¬
body being a real bitch on
w heels, but it just didn't occur.”

The 22-year-old leading lady. Neve
Campbell found working with Craven a
sheer delight. “Wes is one of the best acting
directors I’ve yet to work with," said Camp¬
bell. “Doing a television series like PARTY
OF FIVE, I work with 24 directors in a sea¬
son. There are some good ones, and others
who are very technically oriented, who
don't have a clue on how to direct actors.
Surprisingly, Wes is incredible in that area.
He really creates images for you, to help
you get to where you need to be within the
scene. We were doing one scene, and I had
done a few takes, and right before we did
the last take, Wes said to me, ‘Okay, imag¬
ine you’ve got a thousand bullets ringing
through your body. Now go do it.’That kind
of insight helped me a lot, so I really love
working with Wes."

Williamson originally had set the script
in his hometown of Bay born. North Caroli¬
na, where he fell the sense of quiet serenity
would provide a stark contrast to the grue¬
some work of a serial killer. “I w anted to
get the feeling of THE TOWN THAT
DREADED SUNDOWN,” said William¬
son, “where the community is not equipped
to handle all these vicious killings. They
eventually have to curfew the town, and
everything closes down at dark. Of course,
when the killings continue, the curfew just

serves to isolate people even more.”

Initially, Craven scouted little towns out¬
side the studios at Wilmington, North Car¬
olina. but came up empty-handed. “I want¬
ed to have very American looking houses,”
said Craven, “and a lot of the houses there
were very dark brown, or brick, and that
didn't look attractive to me. It was also dur¬
ing the winter, the weather was cold, and I
just didn't see the locations I wanted. We
then went outside of Vancouver, and. once
again, 1 didn't sec houses I felt looked as
American as I wanted. Finally we came to
northern California, where it had been rain¬
ing a lot, so everything was a very lush
green, and the houses were perfect. All the
houses we ended up using were beautiful
real homes, and when we saw the Santa
Rosa High School, we decided to come
shoot up here. Ironically, we never got to
use the school, but originally the principal
and everyone at the high school were very
open about letting us film there. We really
fought very hard to get Miramax to let us
come to northern California, because I think
it added almost a million dollars to the cost
of the picture, but it was well worth it."

WES CRAVEN’S
REAL-LIFE NIGHTMARE

Bruce Miller, the production designer
for SCREAM, recalled why the Santa Rosa

High School would have been a
perfect location. “For one thing,
it's Gothic, and has a kind of
castle-like quality to it,” said
Miller. “It’s gorgeous to look at,
and it looks a little scary. We
have some frightening moments
that occur at the school, and you
could believe that somebody
could get into that school, terri¬
fy the girls, and then get out
again without being seen. The
school was big enough for that,
and was beautifully laid out. We
had lots of exterior shots to do
in front of the school, and we
could have shot a good portion
of them against the school fa¬
cade. when the reporters, police
and the kids are all there talking
about the first murders. But a
crisis developed when the Santa
Rosa school board objected to
the subject matter of the film,
along with Wes's reputation as
the master of horror."

“We were ail set to shoot at
the school,” recalled William¬
son, “when the school board got
the script, and said. We're not
going to allow you to shoot
here.’ It created a production
problem for us, and got the
whole town into an uproar over
violence in the movies. It was
really a classic First Amend¬
ment argument, because they
were judging us on content, so how could
they let other films shoot there, but not us?
It was simply the judgment of five board
members who decreed what was accept¬
able. I tried to tell them, ‘If you read the
script, you’ll sec the point I’m trying to
make about violence. Horror movies don't
cause violence, it’s lack of opportunities
and poverty that cause violence.’ So by
denying us the right to film there, they lost
all the money and location fees they would
have gotten, thereby creating less opportu¬
nity in their community, which, in turn, cre¬
ates violence. So we said, ‘Okay, if you
don’t want us, we’ll go elsewhere,’ because
we came here to make magic, not to get
people upset.”

For Craven, the situation turned truly
horrendous when the attacks in the local
press began to get personal. It would appear
that Craven, like Alfred Hitchcock before
him, is often pre-judged as some kind of
evil being, simply because he happens to
make horror films. "It was all very self-
righteous and hypocritical," said Craven.
“They said things like, ‘Wes Craven and his
money-grubbing friends from Hollywood
have come here to buy our morals and cor¬
rupt our children.’ There were some things
about it that were very scary, because not
only was I singled out and attacked person¬
ally. but there was such a conspiratorial

37

feeling of ‘You are nol going to be allowed
to practice your craft here. You're too evil,
and we’re going to stop you, and it doesn’t
matter whether it's legal or not. because it’s
a moral issue.’ Once it becomes an issue of
morality, then all constitutionality and logic
goes out the window, and you feel like,
‘two more steps to the right, and people will
be knocking on your door in the middle of
the night, and goose-stepping.* It was really
quite chilling in many ways.”

When Craven began searching for a new
school location, he found a frosty reception
awaiting him in neighboring communities.
A suitable site was discovered in nearby
Petaluma, but with the specter of the real-
life Polly Klass killing still in the air, it was
deemed inappropriate. “We tried several
other places,” related Craven, “but we
found the newspaper had stirred things up
to such an extent, that anyone who heard
about us was already convinced we were
the worst people in the world. It was really
like a nightmare! Ministers and different or¬
ganizations would immediately get peti¬
tions up against us, and 90% of the attacks
we had were by people who hadn't even
read the script. We'd get letters to the editor,
and people would say 'I haven't read this,
but I’m sure it’s horrible, and they shouldn't
be allowed to film here.’ It was all based on
a manufactured reality, so whoever has a
bone to pick would distort the script and de¬
pict it in a certain way. Over and over they
were saying it was about disemboweled
teenagers, and a foul-mouthed principal.
From that you could imagine that every oth¬
er scene is people being gutted, and having
their viscera being thrown at the camera,
while the principal was running around us¬
ing four-letter words. If I heard that, I
would say. Hey. wait a minute, let me read
it,’ but people just accepted that that was
what the script was about, which was com¬
pletely not the case."

The situation took a truly bizarre turn
when a member of the Santa Rosa school
board made a little news of his own. "Right in
the middle of the uproar," said Craven, "one
of the school board members was arrested for
allegedly beating his wife. The paper buried
that story, so I called up the edi¬
tor and said, ‘How can you not
point out the duplicity of this
guy? Don’t you want to draw a
correlation? He said.‘Oh no, we
don’t do that kind of thing.’

Those people were really show¬
ing themselves to be completely
deceitful!"

The controversy was finally
resolved when the production
found a location at the nearby
Sonoma Community Center. “It
had been an elementary
school.” said Miller, "but it was
now owned by a private non¬
profit group that rents it out to
community organizations. It

((The newspaper had
stirred things up to
such an extent that
anyone who heard about
us was convinced we
were [bad] people.”

—Director Wes Craven—

wasn’t a building that was owned by the
city, so it wasn’t under the same kind of ju¬
risdictions. There was still some antago¬
nism, because of the publicity that had been
generated, but finally cooler heads pre¬
vailed. They hud really skewered Wes to the
stake, and. to tell you the truth, we have the
right to make these movies, but right or
wrong, who wants to be vilified in the paper
every day?"

Craven estimated that the delays over
the use of the school cost Miramax over
$350,000. “It was a total lose-lose situa¬
tion," said the director. “The school board
lost a $7<M)(H) location fee that would have
done immense good for their high school,
and we had to build extra sets and totally re¬
arrange our schedule. It was really just
complete stupidity from one end to the oth¬
er, alt because these people were on their
moral high horse."

The opening sequence of SCREAM fea¬
tures a relaxed Drew Barrymore, safe and
secure in the comfort of her own home. As
she’s making some popcorn to enjoy w hile
watching a horror film, she receives an
anonymous phone call. She begins playful¬
ly flirting with the caller, discussing her fa¬
vorite fright films with the total stranger,
blissfully unaware that her every move is
being watched by the mystery caller (who’s
using a cellular phone).

Williamson dreamed up the opening se¬
quence after seeing a Barbara Walters TV
special on the Gainesville murders. “1 was
house-sitting for a friend,” recalled
Williamson, "and I had been there for three

days, alone in this big, empty house. During
a commercial. I went into another room and
noticed that a window was wide open, and I
got very scared, because 1 was sure that the
window wasn't open before. So 1 called up
a friend, and while I was on the portable
phone. I went into the yard, started looking
around, and checked out the garage. The
whole time my friend was saying, ‘Look
out, Hannibal Letter's going to get you.' He
was going on and on with every different
killer movie ever made, and 1 started think¬
ing about what might happen if a killer was
actually out there.”

To shoot the scene, production designer
Bruce Miller recalled the type of house they
were looking for. “We wanted houses that
were vulnerable." explained Miller. “We
didn’t want homes that looked like castles,
or that you could really protect yourself in.
We needed houses that were close to the
ground, and that had windows and doors
that were very accessible, so if somebody
was going to be stalking them, they could
get to them very quickly. It would be your
average middle-class teenager’s home, with
nothing too scary about it. When they come
home, they think they’re safe and then all of
a sudden there’s a knock at the front door,
and then there’s a knock at the back door.
What teenager thinks that death is just
around the corner? They just don’t think in
those terms, but in reality they arc suscepti¬
ble to being stalked."

The house they finally found for the se¬
quence, was in the beautiful wine country
of Glen Ellen. "It was a spectacular home,
that the owners had especially designed for
them." said Miller. “There are beautiful
French doors all around, so even when you
were inside, you were outside. There were
no curtains on the windows, because you’re
right in the middle of their vineyard, w ith
beautiful trees all around it, and it was very
easy to imagine somebody watching you
from outside the house. When Drew walked
into the front door, she said, ‘This is per¬
fect. I could definitely be a teenager flirting
with some guy on the phone, thinking he's
now here in sight, and here he is watching
me from outside.’ Essentially, the only thing
protecting her were just sheets
of glass that would be very easy
to break."

And rest assured the glass
does get broken, although it has
been slightly reworked from the
original script. “In the first ver¬
sion of the script,” said Wil¬
liamson, "I had Casey outside
the house, having to go past
three large windows, to get
around to her front yard. When
she goes to the first one she sees
the killer all the way down at
the end of the hall. At the sec¬
ond window she sees him
across the room, looking in a
closet, and then at the third win-

Renting gore films from the video store. Skeet Ulrich as Bill (left) teases
Randy (Jamie Kennedy) and Stu (Matthew Llllard), or is he for real?

38

HORROR’S NEW BREED

Scripter Kevin Williamson on revitalizing the genre

By Lawrence French

When Kevin Williamson
was a 12-year-old, he got an
Kmm camera and made his first
scary movie, WHITE AS A
GHOST. “It was very similar to
SCREAM,” said Williamson,
whose unique horror script for
SCREAM attracted Wes Craven
to direct. “It was about a killer
stalking my next door neighbor,
a 13-year-old girl.” Some 18
years later, Williamson is about
to begin directing his second
horror film, THE FACULTY,
only this time with a Hollywood
studio backing him.

Williamson's initial interest
in horror films was piqued after
seeing John Carpenter's HAL¬
LOWEEN, and he was espe¬
cially taken by the subsequent
stalker films featuring Jamie
Lee Curtis. “I really loved her
in PROM NIGHT,” exclaimed
Williamson. “I put a running
story about Jamie Lee into
SCREAM. You'll definitely
know I was in love with her. We
even thought about using her in
SCREAM, for a possible
cameo, but we figured that
would be crossing the line.”

Williamson first began in the
business, not as a writer, but as
an actor. “I did some soap opera
work in New York," explained
Williamson, “and then moved
out to Los Angeles. I worked as
an assistant to a music video di¬
rector, and then began working
my way up to production man¬
ager, and finally 1 got to direct a
couple. I always wanted to
write, though, so I finally decid¬
ed 1 would do it. I read all the
screenplay books, read some
scripts, and sat down and wrote
KILLING MRS. TINGLE. It
was a comedy about a young
high school girl, who is one
point shy of becoming a vale¬

dictorian, so she sets out to kill
her English teacher. I gave it to
a friend who had an agent, and
two weeks later 1 was signed
with the agent. We sold it to In-
tcrscope and Joe Dante was go¬
ing to direct it. Joe was a great
guy, he would have been the
perfect director for it, but he left
after we worked for almost a
year on re-writing the script.”

When KILLING MRS. TIN¬
GLE failed to get produced,
Williamson whipped up
SCREAM to help pay his bills.
After the spec script was bought
by Miramax, they turned around
and signed Williamson to a three
picture deal. “That’s why selling
SCREAM to Miramax was a
smart move,” noted Williamson.
“That wouldn’t have happened
if I sold it elsewhere. I'll actual¬
ly be directing THE FACULTY
for Miramax later this year. It’s

like THE BREAKFAST CLUB
meets THE THING. There’s
stuff like when the head falls off
the table in THE THING, then
sprouts legs and starts walking
around. It’s set in a high school,
so 1 touch on what's going on in
our school system today, the vi¬
olence and drugs, and what
we’re teaching our children.”

It appears that Williamson's
first three projects could almost
be a trilogy, each dealing with
different aspects of teenage life
in contemporary high schools.
However, despite his love of the
horror genre. Williamson does¬
n't plan to work in it exclusive¬
ly, since he is well aware of the
pitfalls of becoming typecast in
Hollywood. “Wes has been a re¬
al mentor to me,” said William¬
son. “He sat me down and
warned me not to do only horror
movies. So I'm working on a

comedy and a huge action-
thriller, a sort of homage to
THREE DAYS OF THE CON¬
DOR. Being hooked up with
Miramax helps, because they
strive to make clever films.
They bring class to the genre, so
it doesn't have that kind of hor¬
ror movie baggage, where peo¬
ple think of it as a B-movic.”

Williamson has also written a
third script, based on the book by
Lois Duncan. I KNOW WHAT
YOU DID LAST SUMMER. It’s
set to go into production at Man¬
dalay Entertainment. “It’s about
these four best friends.”
said Williamson, “who
run over someone and
kill him. Instead of
calling the police, they
drag his body 20 yards
and dump him in a
lake. Then, a year later,
they start getting notes
saying. ‘I know what
you did last summer,’
and they all begin to
come apart at the seams. It ap¬
pealed to me because it’s similar
to William Castle’s I SAW
WHAT YOU DID, which I really
liked, but it ended up moving
more in the direction of FRIDAY
THE 13TH, except it’s smarter."

If SCREAM does well,
Williamson has already been
signed to write a sequel. “It’s not
written yet,” said Williamson,
“but it's all in my head. They just
have to give me the go-ahead to
write it. It opens during Sidney's
first year in college, and a movie
based on the murders that take
place in SCREAM, is just com¬
ing out in theaters. I was original¬
ly hoping to call it SCARY SE¬
QUEL, but we lost that when
Miramax changed the title [from
A SCARY MOVIE] to
SCREAM.” Now, if Williamson
can just convince John Carpenter
to direct it.

39

FRIGHTMASTER WES CRAVEN

The director sees beyond his haunting “slasher” label.

Wes Craven, a mild-mannered genre auteur who resents being pigeon-holed In
the horror genre, directs actresses Courteney Cox and Neve Campbell.

By Lawrence French

“I can look al a corpse
chopped to bits without batting
an eyelid, but 1 can't bear the
sight of a dead bird.”

— Alfred Hitchcock

After a long career specializ¬
ing in horror films, director Wes
Craven has high hopes of finally
breaking out of the genre
straight-jacket. Ironically, it was
because Miramax was so de¬
lighted by Craven’s shriek-in¬
ducing work on SCREAM, that
they're allowing him the chance
to direct a more “mainstream"
project. “It’s taken a renegade
company like Miramax to give
me the chance to direct a film
that’s not in the genre,’’ said Craven. "After
our test preview of SCREAM, they sat down
with me and said, ‘Look, we have one other
genre film we want you to make, but if you
make that, you can make a second film with
us, from your choice of all the films we have
in development.'

"We’re in the process of doing a two-
picture deal, where I do a film called BAD
MOON RISING, which is about were¬
wolves and motorcycles, and a second, non-
genre film. What I’m leaning towards is a
feature version of the documentary FID¬
DLE FEST, which was just out last year.
It’s about a New York school teacher who
teaches the violin to ghetto kids. It follows
all her struggles, ending up with a tri¬
umphant concert at Carnegie Hall, where
her students arc playing with four of the
world's top violinists. It’s taken 25 years for
me to be able to do something totally non¬
genre. It’s just because I knocked Mira¬
max’s socks off with this picture, so they
were good enough to say, *Hcy, you want to
do something else, we’ll give you a
chance.’ I’ve seen very few directors who
do more than one horror film, and then go
on and do other kinds of films. Cronenberg
has done it, but all his films have been
rather bizarre.”

Unfortunately, Craven's planned version
of Shirley Jackson’s classic ghost novel.

The Haunting of Hill House, will not be part
of his Miramax deal. “We were struggling
to get a script that Miramax would ap¬
prove,” said Craven. “They wanted to do
something that was classy, and faithful to
the original book, but they felt the first ver¬
sion of the script, by Rick [W.D.] Richter,
was too much towards horror, and too simi¬
lar to NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET.
We did a second script by Edithc Swensen,
but they fell that was too mild, and needed
to be scarier. They just seemed to lose inter¬
est, and I was surprised, because they had
invested a lot of money in the project. You
couldn't tell what they wanted, while with
SCREAM it was a much clearer, straight¬
ahead story. It was a fresh idea that would
appeal to a younger audience, and in many
ways it was a safer bet for them. When they
decided not to make THE HAUNTING,
they actually gave us the property for three
months, but wc couldn't find anybody will¬
ing to go forward with it, although I believe
it's just been purchased by Dreamworks.
They’re going to do a whole new script, and
I’m no longer involved."

Of course. Craven has no intention of
abandoning horror films, but like genre di¬
rectors George Romero, Tobc Hooper and
John Carpenter, he finds the labels bestowed
upon him by the press something of a bur¬
den. “I have hardly ever seen my name men¬

tioned in the LA. Times, without
‘Guru of Gore’ or 'Sultan of
Slash' attached to it,” lamented
Craven. “They just can’t write
about you as a normal filmmak¬
er. It’s somehow impossible for
them not to take a shot at you.
Most of the time when they
were referring to me in the Santa
Rosa newspapers [during the
controversy over the use of the
local high school], it was always
as ‘slasher king, Wes Craven.'
It’s a terribly confining label,
and one I’ve struggled to get
away from my whole career."

Besides feeling restricted by
such directorial typecasting.
Craven also finds the term
“slasher film" objectionable. “1
hate that word,” admitted
Craven, “because it’s clearly derogatory
and there’s a sort of superior feeling by a lot
of people when they use it. At least with
‘horror film,’ you have more of a sense of
movies that have become classics, but I’ve
never heard of anybody within the main¬
stream referring to a classic slasher film.
I'm sure slasher film fans can say, ‘FRI¬
DAY THE 13TH was a classic slasher
film,’ and not feel they’re denigrating it, but
most adults when they say that, are sort of
looking down their noses at you, and I hate
that feeling.”

Craven, who has a Masters of Philosophy
degree from Johns Hopkins University,
thinks that horror films have a nearly unlim¬
ited potential for exploring the human con¬
dition. “I think there’s plenty that’s done in
the genre that's at a low level," said Craven,
“but it also has the capacity to accept a
heavy load of content. It’s like the story of
Cain and Abel. It gets down to those very
basic and simple elements that say so much
about the human beast, both the good and
the bad sides. It shows the worse that human
beings can do to each other, but it also
shows how courageous and strong humans
can be in the face of adversity. The genre
lends itself to both the horrific and the hero¬
ic in a really great way. I'm just glad that I
read the Greek myths and was steeped in the
Bible when 1 was growing up, because it’s

40

Campbell discovers the body of the cameraman assisting TV newswoman Gale Weathers (Courteney
Cox)—another throat-slashed victim. Gale never seems to be far from the murder scene. Hmmm.

all a very similar kind of drama.*’

On another front. Craven is developing a
CD-ROM entitled. Wes Craven’s HOUSE
OF FEAR. “It was a concept I came up
with,” explained the director, “and we
pitched it to a couple of places. This one
company, Cybcrdreams, took it and ran
with it. It’s well along in the programming
stage. I turned in a very thorough treatment
of how it would work. Basically, it's a
house of horrors, starting from darkness and
going to light. It’s based on seven primal
fears, (including: fear of drowning, fear of
immobility, fear of a bad parent, fear of
falling, fear of the predator, fear of the loss
of self and fear of chaos). In each area you
have to solve a problem or confront a mon¬
ster, and once you’ve confronted and tri¬
umphed over it. the lights come on in that
area, and you get a better glimpse of it. The
goal is to go throughout the house, beat all
the primal fears, and get all the lights on.
It’s a positive and fun way for kids to con¬
front their horrors and fears, in a way that
can be good for their overall head."

No doubt some of Craven’s own child¬
hood fears shaped his later work in horror
films. “1 remember growing up in very
tough and dangerous neighborhoods," said
the director. “I came from a broken family,
with a father who was pretty scary. 1 was
raised in a very fundamentalist family, with
all that sort of hellfirc and brimstone preach¬
ing, and I think those kinds of things certain¬
ly affected me. Telling a little kid he’s going
to burn in hell forever, that’s a pretty scary
concept. There was a lot of talk of the Devil,
and spirits and all that kind of thing.”

Another important influence on Craven
was discovering the writings of the ultimate
master of terror and the macabre, Edgar Al¬
lan Poe. “1 discovered Poe in junior high
school," recalled Craven, “and read every¬
thing he wrote. He was a fascinating charac¬
ter. I went to school in Baltimore, and Poe's
grave is there. Then, when I was research¬

ing a film at West Point. I found out he was
a cadet there. He wanted desperately to get
out of West Point, so he'd show up for drills
naked, just wearing a sword. He was in¬
volved in all sorts of wild escapades and fi¬
nally got thrown out. Poe was a very haunt¬
ed person. I’d love to do a biographical film
on him some day.”

With violence in films coming under at¬
tack from many quarters lately. Craven is
quick to defend his work. “A lot of people
ask me how I can do films that are glorify¬
ing violence," noted Craven. “I always turn
it around and say, ‘It's not glorifying vio¬
lence. It’s a film about normal people facing
violence, and they’re horrified by it, but
they learn to triumph over it.’That’s what
life is about, especially as a kid. Facing
your fears. 1 always try to look at the posi¬
tive aspect. I don’t think Freddy Krueger is
just a man with knives on his fingers, but
it’s talking about an element that either kills
innocence or stupidity. In Hindu mythology
there’s Shiva, which is the goddess of death
and destruction, but they’re not talking
about the specific symbol as a reality. It
stands for something else.”

Of course, dreams have always played a
large role in Craven’s films, and he admits
to being greatly influenced by directors like
Luis Bunucl, Ingmar Bergman and Roman
Polanski, whose work often contains vivid
dream sequences. “I’ve always had very
powerful dreams," said Craven. “As a kid, it
was wondering about, ’What is that world,
and how do I deal with it?’ So 1 certainly
found Surrealism and Dada to be very inter¬
esting art movements. 1 especially liked the
way directors like Bunuel would go in and
out of a dream state. I think as a filmmaker,
it was a niche that was very interesting to
me, and somewhat uncxploited. However,
SCREAM is much more real. I haven’t
done a single dream sequence. In fact, it’s
probably my first film without a dream se¬
quence!” □

fifi 1 came from a broken
family, with a father
who was pretty scary. I
was raised in a very
fundamentalist, fire and
brimstone, family. 55

—Director Wes Craven —

dow she looks in, and sees his face pressed
against the glass, staring back at her. We
had to re-vamp that, because the house we
ended up using didn’t match the script."

“In the film, the killer just reaches right
through the window,” said Craven, “so
there’s an enormous crash, and then he
smashes his whole head through the frame.
During our preview, that was the first place
people just jumped out of their seats. It’s a
fun scene, very frightening.”

The scene also affords the viewer their
first glimpse of the killer, who is garbed in
a ghostly white mask. The ghost mask
serves to keep the assailants identity a se¬
cret from his victims, as well as the audi¬
ence. Finding a suitable design for the
mask proved to be an irksome production
problem. “I wish I could say I designed it."
laughed Miller, “but the truth is, we found
it at a house when we were scouting loca¬
tions. A couple who were grandparents
lived there, and the bedrooms were still
decorated for their kids. The kids had all

Rose McGowan as Tatum, another teen victim
falling prey to the psychopathic knife wielder. For
Craven, the horror holds cathartic meaning.

DESIGNING HORROR

Real locations gave the shocks greater impact.

Enhancing the horror with tha naturalism of real locations, Nava Campbell,
Jamie Kennedy and Courteney Cox are shocked to discover a new victim.

By Lawrence French

To get the appropriate small¬
town feeling needed for the
houses that would be featured in
SCREAM, Wes Craven decided
to shoot in and around the beau¬
tiful wine country of northern
California. As production de¬
signer, Craven chose Bruce
Miller, no stranger to horror
films, having worked with
George Romero on such films
as DAWN OF THE DEAD and
CREEPSHOW. “It was just a
fluke that a friend of mine was
working on SCREAM, and
called me to say they were look¬
ing for a designer,” said Miller.
“After meeting with Wes, 1 end¬
ed up with the job.”

Miller came to the film, after
it had already been determined
that shooting would take place
outside of the Los Angeles area,
without the use of any studio
sets. “They had looked all
around Los Angeles,” noted
Miller, “but it was too far flung.
To get the number of houses
and exteriors that they needed
would have meant going to so
many different areas, they de¬
cided there was no point in do¬
ing it in L.A. I also knew there
were too many exteriors for us
to do it in a studio. The interiors
we could have done on stages,
but the whole point of the
movie is that these kids live in
houses that are essentially very
vulnerable. So we wanted to be
able to shoot both the inside and
outside of the houses. It was
tough on Wes and the actors,
because of all the action and
complicated things that needed
to happen in some of the hous¬
es. If we could have shot those
scenes in a studio, it would have
made things a lot easier.”

In Santa Rosa, Miller almost
immediately found the kind of

defenseless houses they were
looking for. “We were very
lucky," said Miller. “We found
really wonderful locations in
the first batch of houses we
looked at. We kept looking, but
we ended up shooting almost
everywhere we saw in the first
couple of days, excepting the
Santa Rosa high school. The
houses weren’t perfect, they all
needed a little work, but I think
Wes was so happy he found lo¬
cations he could shoot in, as op¬
posed to somewhere like North
Carolina, where the houses just
didn't seem right."

Craven and Miller initially
discussed the kind of everyday
normal look they wanted. “We
wanted very middle-class Amer¬
ican homes," said Miller. We
didn’t want anything too scary
about them. What makes it scary
is having the kids stalked by a
killer. We also talked about what
the killer wore, and how he
comes and go as fast as he does.
You’re not sure if it’s supernatur¬
al, because the murderer appears
very quickly from one place to
the next. When we looked at

houses, we wanted floorplans
that would allow the killer to get
to the kids inside very quickly."

The opening scenes of the
movie were shot in a privately
owned home, and involve the
depiction of a brutal double
homicide. In contrast to the San¬
ta Rosa school board, the home-
owners welcomed the filmmak¬
ers into their abode. “It was a
kind of a once-in-a-lifetime
thing for them,” claimed Miller.
“They might have had some
doubts about it, but they were
mostly concerned about getting
their property back the way they
left it. Their kids loved us. One
daughter was around all the
time, and I think we may have
paid for her college education
for a couple of years."

In Santa Rosa, Miller found a
house that served as the home of
Tatum (Rose MacGowan). “It
was right across the street from
the house used by Alfred Hitch¬
cock in SHADOW OF A
DOUBT," noted Miller. “It was
a wonderful fluke, because
SHADOW OF A DOUBT is one
of my favorite movies. On the

same street is the house they
used for POLLYANNA, and
that’s a really spectacular house.
We originally looked at the
SHADOW OF A DOUBT house
as a possibility, but it didn’t have
enough room. The bedrooms
weren't big enough, and the up¬
stairs hallway was too small, al¬
though Hitchcock somehow shot
there. The house across the street
worked much better, because we
needed a front porch, where the
two girls are talking and are sup¬
posedly being watched by the
killer. We did use the kitchen in
the SHADOW OF A DOUBT
house, and the owners showed
us the original dresser upstairs in
the bedroom, where Teresa
Wright finds the ring that in¬
criminates Joseph Cotten as the
murderer.”

The production used the tiny
municipality of Healdsburg to
create the film’s fictional town
of Woodsboro. “It had a very
pretty town square," revealed
Miller. “It really looked more
like New England than Califor¬
nia. There’s a City Hall on the
corner of the square that we
turned into our police station.
We just changed some signs and
put a few things in the win¬
dows. We couldn't use a real
police station, because we
would have been at their mercy,
and we couldn’t be disrupting
their police activity,"

Miller found working on
SCREAM to be a delightful ex¬
perience, a fact he attributed
mostly to his director. "Wes set
the tone, and it was a wonderful
group of people. Wes is a really
nice guy, just like George
Romero. They both have this
reputation because they make
horror films, but they wouldn’t
be able to hurt someone if they
had too! They’re really just teddy
bears.” □

42

moved mil and gotten married, but still
came hack with their grandchildren, who’d
play with all the same toys that their par¬
ents had used. When we were looking at
the house, our producer. Marianne Mad-
dalena saw this mask on the bedpost. She
came out of the bedroom and said, ‘Look at
this mask,’ and Wes said. ‘That’s it! I hat s
what it should look like.'”

The mask was turned over to the design¬
ers at KNH EFX Group, to guide them in
their design approach. “At first we wanted
to make it on our own. so it would be copy¬
right free," said Craven. "So we had KNB
do a whole series of mask drawings, but
they just didn’t work. We couldn't design a
mask that had the same scary qualities of
the one we found. It was uncanny, but some
unknown artist sculpted this mask that just
caught something. Luckily, we found the
manufacturer’s name printed inside the
mask. We managed to get the rights to use
it. literally the day after we started shoot¬
ing. It was some little Mom and Pop opera¬
tion in Maine. It could be a real boon to
them after the film comes out. I hope it be¬
comes a big Halloween item. We actually
went back and re-did a couple shots, be¬
cause the first two days we used our made-
up mask and it really looked stupid. We had
to go back and shoot the close-ups w ith the
better mask, after we got the rights
cleared.”

Another problem that Craven faced was
how the killer would be depicted on screen.
“In the original script, it just called for a
killer in a ghost mask,” noted Craven. "As
soon as I came on-board, I pointed out that
we couldn’t just show a killer in a mask on
screen, without the audience being able to
tell who it is, either by their clothes, or by
how they move, or if it's a boy or a girl. We
were trying to cast suspicion between kids
and adults, so we had to conceive a costume
for the killer that virtually covers every
square inch of their body. That became a
big deal; what the killer was wearing, how
do you construct it, is it white, purple,
black, is it a clown suit? We went through
quite a bit w ith that, to make sure it worked
on screen."

For the first time in his ca¬
reer. Craven decided to use the
wide-screen Panavision format.

"We have a very big. beautiful
look,” said Craven. “It was very
interesting to work with the
anamorphic process, although it
was very challenging technical¬
ly. Focus was much more criti¬
cal. It gave me a lot more free¬
dom in horizontal framing, but
the depth of field was very
tricky, because we were typical¬
ly working with a four-inch fo¬
cal plane throughout the film.

You often had to choose who
was in focus, even if two people
were standing side by side. We

££ We had a drip area
for the actors so they
wouldn’t get blood all
over the set dressing. It
looked like a cow had
been slaughtered.55

—Director Wes Craven —

went through a lot ot agony with that, and
there was a lot of camera Haring we had to
be aware of. even coming from things out¬
side of the frame—car chrome and things
like that. We had to spray all those kinds of
reflective surfaces down. When we started,
these were problems I knew nothing about,
but we learned fast and the end result is a
wonderful-looking picture. I had been
wanting to use widescreen for a while, and
after I finished shooting NEW NIGHT¬
MARE, my director of photography. Mark
Irw in said, ‘The next picture, we’ve got to
make in anamorphic. It's really great.’ Un¬
fortunately, Mark had to leave alter he
started shooting SCREAM for some per¬
sonal reasons, although he shot the bulk of
the film. Peter Deming came in to replace
him, and shot the last three weeks of the
movie.”

Deming, whose cinematography will be
seen in the upcoming David Lynch film,
LOST HIGHWAY, attempted to match the
footage that had already been completed by
Mark Irw in, as closely as possible. “I didn't
have a lot of time to prepare.” said Deming
“so we just had to discuss the shots as we
went along. I think we got a pretty similar
look. 1 came in for the whole finale of the
movie. We had fun lighting the killer in his
ghost mask. We tried to light it from the
side and the bottom as much as possible, to
give it some mottling. We didn’t even want
you to see the eyes, because it might sug¬
gest who the killer was.”

Craven found working on real locations
to be a liberating experience, after being

cooped-up on sound stages for his last pic¬
ture. VAMPIRE IN BROOKLYN. “Every
time I do a film with stage work, I’m dying
to get back onto practical locations," said
the director. “We were shooting in the
beautiful wine country around Santa Rosa,
using some very interesting houses we
found there, so I wanted to be able to see
out of windows a lot, and get a sense of in¬
side, outside, as opposed to doing interiors
on a stage. There was a lot of tricky bal¬
ancing of light levels from interior to exte¬
riors. that we had to contend with. It’s a
shame so much of the film takes place at
night, because it’s so beautiful where we
were shooting. I also wanted a very fluid
camera, so we did a lot of crane shots, a lot
of Steadicam work, and a lot of dolly
shots. We also went for angles that were
reflective of classic horror films, like
HALLOWEEN. Dutched angles, creeping
up behind people, and angles looking
down at people from above. It called for
unusual camera mounts, so we would be
able to tilt and pan at the same time. We
reallv went all out for the visual look of
the film.”

Although Williamson was a big fan of
John Carpenter's HALLOWEEN, Craven
was not as enthused by it. “It was good,
admitted Craven, "but I'm not a huge fan of
it. 1 was always aware of HALLOWEEN
being out there, being one of my competi¬
tors, and having a very strong following. It
was a very straight-forward film, that didn l
make any apologies for being exactly what
it was, and nothing more. Sometimes that
kind of film can be verv powerful. 1 think
FRIDAY THE 13th was like that. It didn’t
have any pretensions to deeper layers or
anything. It was just about scaring you and
grossing you out."

Since scripter Williamson wanted to
keep the audience involved in a guessing
game about who the killer might be. it was
very important that the film be rigorously
constructed, and not have the kind of fla¬
grant impracticalilies that would make the
proceedings impossible. “There has to be
an interior logic to anything," noted
Craven, “and on SCREAM we had to very
carefully go through the whole
script, and make sure there was
no place where we were cheat¬
ing. Kevin had really done his
homework though, so there’s
never anyplace where it’s im¬
possible for the killer to be do¬
ing a murder, because the mur¬
derer was seen somew here else
at the same time. By the end of
the movie, you can go back a
second time and everything is
accounted for. It all makes per¬
fect sense. We did get a couple
of comments on the preview
cards, questioning a few
things, but they either didn't
realize something, or missed a

43

Courteney Cox of the hit TV series FRIENDS plays
ruthless television reporter Gale Weathers, poking
her nose into the sensational teen murders.

point where it had already been explained.
Even when dealing with the dreams in A
NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET, I was
very scrupulous about the logic. Freddy
could only appear if she was sleeping, and
he couldn’t harm her in waking life. So
you sort of construct a reality, and you
have to stay consistent within it.”

Craven did a great deal of work with
his actors, in order to place suspicion
among several different characters who
may, or may not be the assailant. “That
was fun," said Craven, “because we want¬
ed to have something beneath the surface,
to suggest who the killer was, and what
he or she was really up to, without giving
it away. It had to be extremely subtle, but
if you see the picture a second time,
you'll say, ‘Now [ see this person is the
killer.’ The actors did a lot of subtle stuff,
where you realize they're thinking some¬
thing totally opposite of what they’re pro¬
jecting."

While the main aim of
SCREAM is to provide chills
for the audience, it also has a
perverse streak of humor, as ev¬
idenced by characters w ho com¬
pare their predicaments to vari¬
ous horror films they’ve seen.

As Randy exclaims at one
point, “to successfully survive
in a horror movie, you have to
abide by the rules: you can nev¬
er have sex. The minute you do
you’re as good as gone. Sex
equals death. Never drink or do
drugs. It’s an extension of the
first. And never ever, say, ‘I’ll
be right back’.”

By playfully exploring these

genre traditions. Williamson is able to sub¬
vert them and surprise us, while at the same
time keeping several of them intact. Bruce
Miller noted, “ That for some reason, in all
these movies, the kids’ parents have disap¬
peared." In SCREAM, it is Matthew Lil-
lard’s parents who have left him home
alone for the weekend, allowing him to host
a horror film party for all his friends. Unfor¬
tunately, an uninvited guest makes the
evening’s festivities far more terrifying than
anyone anticipated. “Stu throws a great par¬
ty,” said Lillard, “but it was stupid of his
parents to go away, because as soon as they
do, all hell breaks loose."

Neve Campbell’s character Sidney, also
gets to break a convention. “Sidney has a
hard time trusting anybody," noted Camp¬
bell, “and she initially doesn't want to give
in to having sex with anyone. It’s because
of the murder of her mother that happened a
year before. However, she eventually does
have sex, but doesn’t die, which is kind of
empowering for women. You can still have
sex and be strong."

Craven found a suitable house for the
film’s party finale, in the isolated country¬
side of Tomales, California just a few
miles from the Bodega Bay site that Al¬
fred Hitchcock used so memorably in
THE BIRDS. “We wanted Stu’s home to
have elements of a dark and haunted
Gothic house,” said Craven, “and it need¬
ed to be very isolated. We looked a long
time for some place that had alt those ele¬
ments. The house we found was actually
brand new. It had not quite been complet¬
ed when both of the owners died, and the
family of younger kids didn’t quite know
what to do with it. When we found it and
offered to use it, they were very happy to
let us. The art department went in there
and did an enormous number on the
house. We put in all sorts of beams, and
stained-glass windows, darkened all the
colors, and brought in all the set dress¬
ings. It was done in a sort of farmhouse
style, and we changed it into a Gothic
farmhouse. We shot everything right in
the house, and even used the attic. The at¬
tic wasn't very creepy, so we darkened it

Jamie Lee Curtis grapples with the Shape, the masked killer of
Carpenter's HALLOWEEN (1978), the template for Craven s horror

t C We wanted to have
something beneath the
surface to suggest who
the killer was, without
giving it away. It had to
be extremely subtle. 9 9

—Director Wes Craven—

down, and filled it up with all sorts of
strange stuff."

Bruce Miller was pleased with the
house, because it was large enough to al¬
low for the staging of the many complicat¬
ed events that occur in the film’s climax.
“It just doesn't make sense,” explained
Miller, “that in a normal American home,
murders could be happening in the up¬
stairs bedrooms, and people watching
television downstairs wouldn't know
about it. So the house had to be big
enough, and the rooms had to be separated
by enough distance, to convince the audi¬
ence that these things could really be hap¬
pening. without other people knowing
about it. This particular house was perfect
for that, because it was very convoluted,
and kind of Victorian on the inside. It was
actually a little scary to some extent, and
then we added big paintings and a chande¬
lier. Because the house was so Victorian
on the inside, we didn't want to fight that,
but we didn't want to over-stress it either.
We even put a volleyball net in the front
yard, because it had to be believable that a
normul teenager lives there with his par¬
ents, who just happened to be away for the
weekend."

The house presented other challenges to
the filmmakers, such as adapting the action
in the script to the actual location. “You
have to solve certain problems that relate to
the geography of the house," stated Craven.
“In the script, Sidney is pursued to a third
story attic above all the other rooms, and
she had to climb down over the roof, and
land on a balcony outside the
bedroom. The killer comes out
of the bedroom and she’s trying
to get off the balcony, while the
killer grabs her hand, trying to
pull her back up on the balcony.
But we never found a house that
was designed like that. This one
had a sort of a loft room, that
was really on the second floor,
along with the other finished
rooms, so we couldn't have Sid¬
ney climb out over the roof. In¬
stead. we hud her falling out of
the window, to the driveway be¬
low, and we realized she would
be falling right down by the
garage, where someone else has

John

update.

just been killed. We decided it
would be great for her to see
that, just to add to her own sense
of terror.”

Indeed, the movie reaches
the peak of it’s nerve wracking
suspense, when the murderer
strikes a helpless victim, who is
stuck in an archetypical position
of vulnerability inside the
garage. “That scene certainly
works,” noted Craven. “Our
preview audiences really felt a
sense of shock, like they could-
n’t believe that person dies.

They'd come to like the charac¬
ter so much, and after the killing
a sort of strange hush fell over
the audience for a moment. It
was almost like they couldn't
believe that it was really hap¬
pening. Staging-wise, it's a very
interesting scene. There’s a lot
of suspense, a jump, then a pro¬
tracted struggle, and finally the
death, so it’s a sort of set piece.

It's an editorial and camera-an¬
gle tour de force, as opposed to
some other things, which are
just a matter of action playing
out in lunger lakes. We use a lot
of cutting, and it’s a very cine¬
matic scene. The sequence with
Drew Barrymore is also very
chilling. There were about eight
or nine places where the audi¬
ence was screaming in fear. We
had a lot of comments like, ‘I haven’t been
so scared in a long time.' It seems like it re¬
ally works.”

Williamson was especially pleased with
the garage sequence, and feels it contains
the scariest moments in the movie. "Wes
did a beautiful job in creating suspense,”
enthused Williamson. "My goal was always
to make it suspenseful, not just gory, and
there’s very little blood in that whole garage
sequence. The only really bloody moments
in the film come at the beginning, which is
where it should be. You shock the audience
up front, and it stays with them, and then
they won't know what to expect for the rest
of the movie. That way the killer becomes a
real threat, because you know what he’s ca¬
pable of doing. So the opening is a little
nasty, but it never gets that bloody again. It
becomes more of a mystery, as you wonder
where is the killer, and who is going to die
next.”

Of course, in his past movies. Craven
has never been afraid to show a great deal
of blood, and he equivocated on William¬
son's ascertainment that the film's blood
and gore content is restrained. “It is and it
isn’t,” said Craven. “The two deaths at the
beginning arc quite bloody. That’s one of
the things that the Santa Rosa school board
seized on and found to be so shocking. Ob¬
viously, since they're eviscerations, there’s

The first victim—Drew Barrymore taunted by the killer with a phone
slasher movies, with her boyfriend's life at stake if she answers

a lot of blood involved. Nowadays, direc¬
tors like myself arc held up to Hitchcock,
and people say, “In the shower scene from
PSYCHO, Hitchcock didn’t really show
anything.* I must have had a million people
say that to me, like Hitchcock was this ele¬
vated artist, and we’re all a bunch of slobs,
just because we show real blood.”

A concomitant issue that has long been
the subject of spirited debate, is the ques¬
tion of how far one should go in the depic¬
tion of screen violence. Can it incite view ¬
ers to commit copycat crimes? It’s a topic
that Alfred Hitchcock addressed with some
levity, after a man who killed three of his
wives was apprehended, and said he mur¬
dered the third after seeing PSYCHO. Re¬
porters were clamoring for a comment from
the famed director, who replied to Orianna
Fallaci, “I was very flattered. Oh, I don’t
know what I wouldn't give to know about
all the times I’ve been copied. The trouble
is that every day someone commits the per¬
fect crime; one that isn’t discovered. 1 told
[the journalists] I was unhappy, because the
man didn't say after which of my films he
murdered his second wife. Maybe he mur¬
dered the first after drinking a glass of milk.
From the glass of milk to the revolver. How
often that's happened.”

In his screenplay, Williamson also ad¬
dresses the issue of copycat killings with a

wry sense of humor. “My fa¬
vorite line in the movie,” said
Williamson, “is when Sidney
says to the killer, ‘You sick
fuck, you’ve seen too many
horror movies.’And the killer
says, ‘Don’t blame the movies,
Sidney. Movies don’t create
psychos. Movies just make psy¬
chos more creative.’ That sums
it up in a nutshell. I mean, some
guy saw INTIiRVIFW WITH A
VAMPIRl*, and drained all the
blood out of his girlfriend’s
body. Something tells me that
he would have killed her any¬
way. He just happened to see
the movie on the wrong night
and it made him a little bit more
creative, but that girl was al¬
ready doomed. To blame the
movies for that is just absurd.”

Craven is in complete agree¬
ment with his screenwriter. “I
could conceive that there could
be a copycat killing," said
Craven, “where a killer who is
already completely nuts, might
use a movie as his format or
pattern for a murder, but 1 think
that person is going to kill any¬
way. I think art is more impor¬
tant than worrying about that. If
you're going to look at any sin¬
gle instance of something caus¬
ing a death, then you’d have to
eliminate 80% of the things in
our society. People have been killed with
pencils. We’re killed all the time by cars
and airplanes, but we don’t stop using them,
because they’re important, and it's a very
small percentage of deaths. The number of
people getting killed by a copycat act is in¬
finitesimally small, yet it’s been blown out
of all proportion by the media. 1 think the
reason why, is that some people are interest¬
ed in stopping the message, which is that
there is madness in our society, there is vio¬
lence that’s out of control and unexamined.
That’s why certain people hate these horror
films. They want us to sweep it under the
carpet, and act like everything is Disney¬
land. and it isn’t. It’s just like they want to
control rock lyrics, or rap music. They want
to act tike there aren't those passions and
rages out there. Well, I’m sorry, but they arc
there. Part of the reason they're there, is be¬
cause a lot of people arc leading lives that
cause a lot of other people pain and rage.
The Bob Doles of the world like their nice
lily-white world, but they live isolated aw'ay
in country club enclaves.”

Of course, psychologists and other ex¬
perts have long argued about the cathartic
effect of horror films, and have pointed
out their therapeutic value in relieving the
pent-up aggressions of the viewer. "Hor¬
ror films are really primal theater,” said
Craven. “You’re dealing with imaginary

quiz about
wrong.

45

characters that arc representing other ele¬
ments. When you look at a movie that
way, you can get around the very
parochial idea, where people say, ‘Oh my
God. you're depicting teenagers getting
slaughtered, and you're a horrible person.’
No you're not. You’re talking about
modes of being, whether some people can
cope with threats, or some are oblivious to
it. I've always felt that horror films start
out with many characters to represent a
kind of composite character. Most of them
don't have the kind of coping skills that
you want to have in your central character
at the end. So you sort of pare away, al¬
most like you’re carving a character out of
a block of wood. The parts that are
chipped away are the other characters who
don't have what it takes to survive. In a
sense you’re saying, if you’re screwing
and not looking at what you’re doing, then
you’re going to get killed. The kids in the
audience watching the film always identi¬
fy with the one person they really don't
want to be killed. The other characters can
get their heads chopped off, because
they’re symbols of something that the kids
don't respect. In a sense they need to be
killed. It’s like a psychic entity really,
that's why I don't think you should take
these movies as something that is literally
real, in that limited of a way. We’re not
talking about a real person, hut what that
type of character represents. It’s an imagi¬
nary event, a ‘what if this were to happen
to me,’ kind of situation.”

At the astonishing conclusion of
SCREAM, Williamson found that Craven
and the actors had envisioned the scenes ex¬
actly as he imagined them. “Wes really
nailed it. and found the right tone,” said
Williamson. “Everyone who first read the
script, didn’t quite know how to classify it.
They'd say, ‘What’s the lone? Is it a come¬
dy, or is it a scary movie.’ I'd say, ‘It’s a
scary movie,’ but at first we weren't sure
how far to take it. Well. Wes got it. It’s a
dark perverse tone, with a touch of David
Lynch, and the actors really manage to cap¬
ture that feeling. It’s really quite disturbing.
Something happens at one point, that just
transforms the movie, so it real¬
ly becomes about something
more. You just get sucked into
that house with the kids, and
end up in total shock.”

Craven found working with
his cast on the final sequence a
real challenge, both for the
emotions involved in the
scenes, and the technical
prowess that it required. “The
actors couldn't wait to get into
that last scene,” exclaimed
Craven. “1 thought they would
be resistant to doing it, but it
turned out I could hardly hold
them back. I think it was be¬
cause it was such a challenge

Characters can get
their heads chopped off
because they’re symbols
of something kids don’t
respect. In a sense, they
need to be killed.”

—Director Wes Craven—

for them, and such a wild release of emo¬
tions. It’s something that is so forbidden,
you just can’t believe you're seeing it. Au¬
diences aren’t used to seeing this, and it’s
just appalling. We started by doing little
pieces, while we were waiting for the sun
to go down, and finally, the actors begged
me to let them go do it for the w hole day.
For the next four or five days we were in
the kitchen of that house, and it seemed
like we were never going to get out. When
we actually got into it, it was horrendous
dealing with the continuity. Anytime
you're dealing with blood, it’s like a night¬
mare, because if somebody gets stabbed,
there's blood, and if you want to do a sec¬
ond take, it’s off to the hairdresser and
wardrobe, to have the actors changed back
to the way they were before. It was very
tricky that way. We were going through
costumes like crazy. We even had special
drip areas where the actors could stand, so
they wouldn’t drip blood all over the set
dressings. It looked like a cow had been
slaughtered, and by the time we were done
with the ending scene, everybody had
blood all over them. The actors couldn't
wait to burn their costumes, because they
were just covered in blood. They were all
clammy, and their clothes were sticking to
them, so they’d say to me. ‘Can we burn
these?' Finally, at the end of it all I said,
‘Okay, go burn your wardrobe.'"

When Craven had assembled a rough cut
of the film, he screened it for Miramax
boss. Bob Weinstein who responded very
favorably to the picture. Subsequently,

Craven held an audience preview of the
film in Sccaucus, New Jersey. “It blew
everybody away,” exclaimed Craven. “Peo¬
ple were laughing one minute and jumping
out of their seats the next. The scores we
got were in the *KOs and '90s, for every¬
thing—characters, plot, and pacing, so we
really had an extraordinary screening. Mira¬
max said. No changes, just go finish it.’ We
just have a few inserts to shoot, and then it's
going to the sound guys. It's a picture that
was already there on the page, and we got a
great cast together, so it translated very well
to the screen.”

Scoring of the picture was among the
final touches that remained, and Craven
discovered a new composer via the Inter¬
net. “My assistant, Julie Plec was on this
Hollywood Cafe site,” revealed Craven,
“and was talking to other Hollywood peo¬
ple about our needing a composer. Some¬
body mentioned the name of Marco Bel¬
trami, and when I heard the CD he had
put together I was really struck by his
music, so I've been working with him.
lie’s never done a film before, only tele¬
vision, but we're using a full orchestra
with a lot of strings, and I have a feeling
he's going to deliver something unique
and terrific."

Williamson’s original title for the film,
SCARY MOVIE was given the axe by Mi¬
ramax during production, who no doubt
felt SCREAM was a more commercial
sounding title. While preferring the first ti¬
tle, both Craven and Williamson remained
quiescent about the change. “We were in¬
credibly fond of SCARY MOVIE as a ti¬
tle,” noted Craven. “At first we were upset
to hear Miramax was going to change it,
but we've come around to thinking that
SCREAM is a pretty good title. Miramax
claimed that there were strictly legal rea¬
sons for the change, because there was an¬
other film called SCARY MOVIE, and
they couldn't get the rights to it. Yet. we
discovered there was another film called
SCREAM. At our preview people did a lot
of screaming though, so I think they re¬
spond to titles that match how they experi¬
ence the film. They wrote comments like,
‘This movie is a scream.’ I
think with the right trailer and
ad campaign we’ll be fine."

Williamson agreed, saying,
“Miramax needed the title for
their marketing purposes. I cer¬
tainly liked SCARY MOVIE
better, that’s why I named it
that, but I understand why they
changed it. It’s a situation where
I have to trust them, because
they certainly know more about
marketing than I do. 1 can’t have
everything. I mean, they’re
making my first movie and it’s
turning out to be a dream expe¬
rience for me! What more could
I want?"

46

HORROR ON THE SET

A young cast on working with the horror master.

On location In Tomalas, California, site of the shocker's appalling finale and a
creative Jam session for a young cast In the hands of a master.

By Lawrence French

On un isolated country road,
the cast and crew of Wes
Craven's new fright film,
SCREAM assembled shortly
before dusk, to create the scenes
of pandemonium that will occur
in the movie's appalling finale.
After doing some preliminary
consultations with crew mem¬
bers. director Craven stepped
outside the isolated house he
found in Tomales, California.
Craven gazed at a beautiful
summer sunset, gaining inspira¬
tion before starting on a night
full of filming that lasted until
dawn the next day.

The house was set on a hill,
well away from the county road
below it. Like the house in
PSYCHO, there is an air of Vic¬
torian and Gothic decor about
it, and one imagines it's the
kind of house that would have
garnered the approval of Hitch¬
cock. Since the building is lo¬
cated right outside of Bodega
Bay, (the location of Hitch¬
cock's THE BIRDS), it seems
rather ominous when hundreds
of assembled blackbirds begin
chirping as the sun fades away.

As darkness fell. Craven re¬
entered the house to put his ac¬
tors through their paces. To¬
day’s scenes involved mostly
fragmented bits of action, and
Craven worked quickly, doing
run-throughs and shooting the
scenes in one or two takes. Dur¬
ing a break I asked executive
producer, Marianne Maddalena,
about Craven’s swiftness in
shooting the scenes. “Wes had
been directing for so long he
knows when he’s gotten what
he needs,” said Maddalena.
“There's no insecurity. A lot of
directors don't know until they
get to the set what they're going
to do, but Wes sees everything

early and he can really nail it.”

During a short break, actors
Matthew Li 1 lard and Neve
Campbell join me for an im¬
promptu interview session on
the impressive stairway of the
house. Liilard and Campbell
both found working with Wes
Craven to be a joyful experi¬
ence. “He’s a complete cult
icon,” enthused Lillard. “It’s
like working with John Waters.
My first film was SERIAL
MOM, where I played Kathleen
Turner's son. Working with Wes
you’ve already got a built-in
following of people, who will
want to see the film. This script
was really great, and it’s differ¬
ent. The ending is really sick
and twisted.”

While Neve Campbell en¬
joyed working with Craven, she
made a surprising confession: “I
hate watching horror movies,”
said the actress. “I’m one of
those people who arc so terri¬
fied by them, 1 have to sit with a
pillow in front of my face. I
can’t watch them, but I love
playing in them. THE CRAFT
was similar to SCREAM, be¬

cause it was about four women
who, as they emerge from child¬
hood, take power and control
over their lives.”

A few days later, filming
moved to the Sonoma Commu¬
nity Center, the replacement site
for the film’s high school set¬
ting, after the filmmakers were
made most unwelcome at the
Santa Rosa high school. Shoot¬
ing commenced on a scene in¬
volving Sidney (Campbell) ar¬
riving for school in Deputy Ri¬
ley’s car. As she emerged, Sid¬
ney is accosted by a TV news
reporter, who asks her, “How
docs it feel to be almost brutally
butchered?" The actress playing
the reporter looked vaguely fa¬
miliar, and someone finally re¬
vealed that it’s Linda Blair. Af¬
ter doing a few takes, a cheerful
Blair came over to chat. "I’m
making a guest cameo appear¬
ance with no billing,” said the
star of THE EXORCIST. “I’m
just here for one day, so you’ll
have to find me in the movie. I
go way back with Wes, having
done STRANGER IN THE
HOUSE for him. He asked me

if I would do a cameo in
SCREAM and 1 said. ‘Sure.’
I’m wearing these crosses as
earrings, for all those horror
people who love that kind of
stuff.”

Returning to the scene,
Craven put Blair through the ac¬
tion once again. Deputy Riley,
played by David Arquette, at¬
tempted to shield Sidney from
Blair's obnoxious questions. He
tells Blair to “leave the kid
alone. She just wants to go to
school.” On the second take Ar¬
quette has flubbed his line, and
on subsequent shots he seems to
be doing improvised variations
of the line. Craven watched
calmly, going to takes five and
six, before taking Arquette gen¬
tly aside and conferring with
him privately. Later 1 asked
Craven if he was annoyed by
the delay.

“David is so lovable, I
couldn't get mad at him,” said
the director. “We just had to do
it over. There have been a cou¬
ple of times where I had to say,
‘Let’s get professional here,’ but
David, more than anyone else,
marches to a different drummer,
and that comes across in his
performance. You get some¬
thing very special and unique.
Part of it is because he doesn't
memorize his lines completely.
He told me, ‘I start losing some¬
thing if I know all the lines.' So
he reads the script and under¬
stands it, and during the course
of four or five takes, it ends up
being something quite delight¬
ful. 1 just don’t fight it. As the
director, I could threaten him,
and say, ‘You must know the
lines exactly as they’re written,’
but you can get into a whole
power struggle that way. 1 don’t
feel compelled to do that, be¬
cause he's giving us something
delightful.” □

47

The rediscovery of Robert E. Howard, father

By James Van Hise

With HERCULES and XE-
NA a ratings hit on television
and Edgar Rice Burroughs’
TARZAN making a TV come¬
back, it seems timely for audi¬
ences to rediscover Robert E.
Howard’s CONAN THE BAR¬
BARIAN. Former Mr. Universe
Ralph Moeller has been cast to
play Howard’s “sword and sor¬
cery” hero in a series produced
by American First Run to air in
the fall of 1997. Also stirring in¬
terest in Howard is THE
WHOLE WIDE WORLD, a bi¬
ographical glimpse of the short¬
lived but supremely talented
writer which was set for release
December 25 from Sony Clas¬
sics.

THE WHOLE WIDE
WORLD is based on the mem¬
oir, One Who Walked Alone,
by Novalyne Price Ellis, a
woman who was a close friend
of Howard’s during the last
three years of his life. The
genesis of the film is an odd
one, beginning in a round¬
about way before Ellis even
wrote her memoir and had it
published in 1986. Noted
Michael Scott Myers, who
wrote the screenplay based on
the book, “It began back in the
late ’70s because I was a stu¬
dent of Novalyne Price when 1
was in high school, and so was
Ben [Mouton], the guy who
played Clyde Smith [in the
film]. She was my speech
teacher in Louisiana, and her
last year was actually the year
1 graduated, which was 1979.1
asked, ‘What are you going to
do now?’ and she said, ‘Well,
I’m working on a book. It’s
about a guy I knew when I was
younger; he’s the guy that
wrote the Conan stories.*
That’s how she referred to it.”

Myers kept in touch with his
old high school teacher, and af¬
ter completing college he visit¬

ed her, whereupon she gifted
him with a copy of her book.
One Who Walked Alone:
(Robert E. Howard, The Final
Years). At the time he tried
reading it, but didn't finish it.

“I put it down and about
two years later 1 picked it back
up again because I’d seen a
film which was a small period
piece and 1 thought, let me try
this again, and 1 sat down and
read it all the way through. 1
guess my mind was just in an¬
other place [this time] and I
got through it and was just
amazed with Howard. I
thought, this is a character that
an actor would kill to play be¬
cause there were so many dif¬
ferent sides to him.”

Myers contacted Ellis, who
kindly allowed him to option
the film rights for $20. “1 start¬
ed working on the script the
summer of ’90," said Myers. “It
was originally 165 pages. It
looked like the Bible, and I got
together with Dan Ireland soon
after that and we started paring
it down."

Director Dan Ireland came to
the project due to his acquain¬
tance with actor Benjamin Mou-
ton, a friend of Myers. Ireland
had previously worked as a pro¬

ducer on such films as John Hus-
ton’s THE DEAD, Bernard
Rose’s PAPERHOUSE and Ken
Russell’s THE RAINBOW and
LAIR OF THE WHITE WORM.

Said Ireland, “I had done a
picture that I produced for Ken
Russell, and one of the actors in
my film was Ben Mouton. We
stayed friends and he came over
to my house one day and said, ‘I
have a book here I want you to
read. This is written by my old
school teacher. It’s about her
friendship with Robert E.
Howard.’ I didn’t know
Howard’s work at that time,
aside from knowing of Conan.

My brother was a complete
Howard fanatic, but I wasn’t.
But after I read the book, I was
compelled by it. It was quite
amazing. If you read between
the lines, this woman was in
love with this man, but she
could never bring herself to say
that she was.”

Ireland made contact with
Myers and then went to Lou¬
isiana to visit Mrs. Ellis. “We
talked, and the more she told
me she didn’t love (Howard),
the more I kept asking," said
Myers. “It was so clear how
much this man meant to her. 1
thought the story was fascinat¬
ing. in the middle of Texas,
here’s this giant of a man with
worlds in his head that you just
don’t understand where they
came from. And this woman
who really had guts to sort of
barge her way into his life
when really it wasn’t the time
where women did things like
that. Their friendship was so
interesting, and what they
talked about was so amazing; 1
was so touched by it. And
when I went to Cross Plains I
started getting into the Howard
story. That was completely fas¬
cinating.”

Ireland noted that in the gen¬
eral store in Cross Plains,
Texas, they still have Howard’s

Howard and Ellis share an epiphany, shortly before the author s tragic suicide.
Sony Classics opens the critically lauded screen biography December 25.

r

death certificate, and under oc¬
cupation it stales: “ritcr."

"This brilliant man, who was
living right in their midst, was
looked upon as the town freak,”
said Myers. "It was mind-bog¬
gling! And then I started read¬
ing Howard's works. I read The
Imsi Cell [the biography by Glenn
Lord], and I was hooked.”

Both Ireland and Myers were
of one mind about who should
play Howard: Vincent D’Ono-
frio. “All of us had seen FULL
METAL JACKET and thought
he was one of the greatest
young actors in America,” said
Ireland. It took them a year to
get the script past D’Onofrio’s
manager so that he could read
it. “She got it to him and I met
him a week later, and he was
committed. And he stayed with
us all the way through.”
D’Onofrio played Orson Welles
in ED WOOD and will appear
as a villain in the forthcoming
genre film MEN IN BLACK.

Dan Ireland was working for
Cineville as vice-president of
production, under company
chief Carl Colpaert. Myers and
his other producing partner
wanted at least a $2.5 million
budget to make the film. But
when Kushner-Lockc expressed
interest in the project they only
agreed to put up $1.35 million,
take it or leave it.

Myers recalled, "We said,
we’re not sure that’s going to be
enough. It's a period piece. It’s
Texas. But they finally con¬
vinced us that we could do it.”

The company’s publicity
claims the film cost $4 million
to make, a claim the director
quickly dismissed. “If people
know that the film was shot for
$1.35 million when they look at
it, they’ll know that people had
to love this and put their heart
and soul into it to make it look
like this,” he said. “I’m very
proud of it.” Kushncr-Locke ul¬
timately spend about $1.6 mil¬

Howard virtually created the sword ft sorcery
genre in riveting stories about Conan, the
Barbarian In Weird Tales magazine In the ’30s.

lion, including prints. Vincent
D’Onofrio (who has a producer
credit on the film) spent
$10,000 of his own money to
pay for the rental of a Grey¬
hound bus for one of the last
scenes, and to pay the musi¬
cians to do the film’s music.

Olivia D’Abo was originally
cast as Novalyne. but she had to
bow-out of the production at the
last minute because she was six
months pregnant. She was re¬
placed by Renee Zellweger, a
Texas actress whose genre cred¬
its include the remake of THE
TEXAS CHAINSAW MAS¬
SACRE, and who has also ap¬
peared in such films as LOVE
AND A .45, REALITY BITES
and DAZED AND CON¬
FUSED. Her work on THE
WHOLE WIDE WORLD so
impressed people that she was
cast in the forthcoming Tom
Cruise film, JERRY MA¬
GUIRE.

“Renee came to me about
two weeks before we started
pre-production," said Ireland.
“My casting director said, ‘You
must see this girl. She’s great.’
And I had no idea, even when I
met her, just how great she’d
be. I needed an actress that
could steal scenes from [Vin¬
cent], especially towards the
end. He’s a hard guy to steal
scenes from."

Zellweger gives an outstand¬
ing performance in the film. In
describing what attracted her to
the part, Zellweger noted, “I
thought it was an incredible sto¬
ry. It’s not every day that a slice
of life film comes along like
this. And it’s also so interesting
that this guy was such a pariah
in his town. I thought that was
pretty fascinating in itself, how
this man managed to survive as
long as he did, sanely, in that
small town, with his idealism.”

of sword & sorcery fiction.

49

A life of romance and contradictions.

During the 193(is, Robert E.
Howard cast a long shadow in the
domain of pulp fiction where his
“Conan the Barbarian" produced
imitations even before Howard
ended his brief career. He was also
notorious around Cross Plains,
Texas due to his eccentric ways,
but those who truly knew him said
that he was a fine man. This film
examines Howard from the inside
as observed by a woman who spent
a great deal of time with him dur¬
ing the years when Howard’s short
career was arguably at its peak.

While the film is told from
the point of view of young Nova-
lyne Price Ellis (played with
great sensitivity by Renee Zell¬
weger), her life in those three
years becomes largely defined
by the ups and downs of her
friendship with "Bob Howard.”

Initially drawn to Howard be¬
cause he's a successful, published
author, while she collects only re¬
jection slips, the differences in
their personalities makes it clear
immediately that whatever rela¬
tionship they develop will not be
an indifferent one. She knows what
she wants and chooses to become a
teacher when it’s clear that becoming
a writer may take her a very long
time. Howard (Vincent D'Onofrio) is
bold and passionate about his writing.
When Novalyne explains that she
wants to write about the real world
and admits to jotting down conversa¬
tions in her journal in order to capture
the essence of the way people talk,
Howard dismisses the idea because
the real world is of no interest of him
and the people in it arc dull, which is
why he writes adventures about far¬
away places he's never been, featur¬
ing larger-than-life characters.

While Howard is shown to be
devoted to his sickly mother (more
devoted than her doctor husband, it
would seem), to Novalyne’s eyes
Howard was not so obsessive as to
avoid any social life. He clearly
liked spending time with Novalyne,
but just as clearly didn't know how
to act around women. If anything, he
learned from trial and error while
dating Novalyne. Were they lovers?
Not in the ’90s sense of the word,
but Howard did ultimately admit to
being in love with Novalyne, but on-

A glimpse at the man who created

Conan, Zellweger and D'Onofrio
create a bittersweet slice of the '30s.

ly months after he had angrily re¬
jected her professed love for him. To
Novalyne, Howard was a wandering
spirit, perhaps even a lost sou) look¬
ing for its center.

The two spent a great deal of time
together and we get to see Texas as
Howard might have seen it circa
1930s, and in so doing we come to
better understand how a young man
living in the small town of Cross
Plains in the middle of Depression-
era Texas could have dreamed up the
fantastic adventures he wrote with
such alacrity. In one scene Howard
and Novalyne stand at the top of a
hill, looking down on a magnificent
forest with a river running through it,
and Novalyne remarks that they can
see the whole world from there, to
which Howard replies, “and others.”
In the background drums are briefly
heard and we realize that this setting
could have easily inspired Howard to
write “Beyond The Black River,” one
of his most powerful stories.

Those who really know Howard’s
work will also recognize the signifi¬
cance of the passing reference made
to Howard's correspondence with
H.P. Lovecraft (which actually began
earlier than the film implies). Copies

of Weird Tales are shown lying
around, and at one point Novalyne
overhears Howard at work on his
typewriter, shouting a story aloud
as he writes it. The devoted will
recognize the scene in question as
being from the Conan story, “The
Jewels of Gwahlur.”

That Howard was a misfit in
Cross Plains is not glosscd-over by
the film, but it also makes it clear
that he did have a social life, how¬
ever turbulent and wrought with
both good times and misunder¬
standings. This is a simple story
gently but sensitively told by
screenwriter Michael Scott Myers.

Even the uninitiated cannot
help but admire the marvelous
grasp of the era the film achieves,
including many old cars and the
portrayal of a small town with the
less hectic pace of life in those
days. Contributing largely to the
overall effect is the beautiful cine¬
matography of Claudio Rocha,
whose night scenes arc clear and
sharp, while the daylight scenes
almost glow with warmth and
color. While too many films to¬
day arc flat and featureless in their
cinematography, THE WHOLE
WIDE WORLD captures the look of
what color films were like when col¬
or itself was a new medium for film¬
makers to work in and they reveled in
the possibilities it presented.

The most debated aspect of
Howard's life was his devotion to
his mother. The fact remains that
Howard killed himself when it was
clear that his mother lay at death’s
door. The film shows Howard being
attentive to his mother, but more
than anything else we get the sense
that he was something of a manic
depressive, having extreme highs
and lows in his views of life. In this
way the portrayal of Howard be¬
comes more well rounded in the film
without ever stopping to try to apol¬
ogize or explain. This is just how
Novalyne saw him during those
three years, and it is clear that while
for a brief time she loved him, she
never stopped admiring him.

In the end Howard emerges as
passionate and exuberant as any of
the heroes he created, but of human
dimensions and filled with contra¬
dictions. James Van Hist

Mrs. Ellis visited the film
while it was in production,
which made Zellweger nervous
at the prospect of meeting the
woman she was portraying, but
all turned out well. Noted Zell¬
weger, “She was very pleased. I
think that she was moved that it
was actually happening, that
somebody was taking such an
interest in Robert Howard be¬
cause of her perspective on
him.”

Dan Ireland gave Vincent
D’Onofrio extra credit for
standing up to the completion
bond company w hen they re¬
fused to give Ireland an extra
day for shooting. "He was the
one that supported me a thou¬
sand percent in my vision, and
when I had the bond company
show up because I was a day
behind, wanting to cut scenes, it
was Vince that picked up the
phone and told them that if they
touched my work or if they
made me do this or that, he was¬
n’t going to work.”

The commitment of the film¬
makers is nowhere more evi¬
dent than in the look of the film,
thanks to the vision of the direc¬
tor and the talents of cinematog¬
rapher Claudio Rocha. The
film’s imagery is not only bright
and alive, but filled with a rich¬
ness of color rarely seen on
screens today. "If you've no¬
ticed, ours has a very lush sort
of warm glow,” said Ireland,
“We shot it with a lot of filters.
Sometimes they were magenta
and sometimes they were yel¬
low, and when we were devel¬
oping it, I had them keep adding
in the magenta when I needed
magenta, and the yellow when I
needed yellow. I’m very happy
with it. I think that the color of
this film is very important, be¬
cause it represents a time and a
period and a place. Claudio
Rocha is absolutely superb. Af¬
ter I saw [his] PICTURE
BRIDE at Sundance, I knew
there wasn't anyone else I want¬
ed. He was so exotic. I wanted
this film to look exotic, but au¬
thentically exotic, not like you
wouldn’t believe it.

"That’s why I shot it in
scope, loo. I really wanted that
landscape. Everyone thought I
was out of my mind. It was like
a two-character piece and I was
shooting it anamorphic and they
thought I was insane. It was the
deal-breaker. I literally got

50

$12,000 for five years work on
this movie. I didn't care about
that. That didn't bother me. But
when they started telling me
that I had to shoot it at 1:85 to
1, I said uh, uh. l*ni not doing
the film because this is how it
is. If you want it to look more
expensive than the $1.35 mil¬
lion budget that you're giving
me. then I insist upon shooting
this scope." The director pre¬
vailed.

"When we assembled the
first cut it was three hours and
20 minutes, and there was a lot
more with all the other charac¬
ters. And the more 1 started
looking at it. the more it was
going down to Bob and Nova-
lyne because that's what it had
to be. That's when it sprung to
life." The final cut is 111 min¬
utes.

After filming was complet¬
ed, Dan Ireland phoned Ellis to
tell her how it had turned out. "I
told her. listen. I want you to
understand that the portrayal of
these characters is absolutely
authentic, but it’s mostly on
Bob and Novalyne. And I said,
‘1 have to tell you the truth. It’s
a very romantic film, and I want
you to know that when you told
me you never loved Robert, I
didn't believe you for a minute.’
And she was quiet, and she said,
‘Well, mavbe I did. Maybe I
did.’”

Location work on THE
WHOLE WIDE WORLD was
done in Texas, outside Austin.
The limited budget and logis¬
tics prevented them from trans¬
porting and housing the film
company in or near Cross
Plains. But you wouldn't know
it from looking at the film be¬
cause everything on screen
looks completely authentic.
Sometimes fate lent a hand in
that.

Ireland had to scramble to
find a location for the crucial
scene where Howard and Price
kiss atop a cliff. "I found that
location ten hours before I was
supposed to shoot there,” said
Ireland. “The big moment in
the movie. We were originally
supposed to go to a place
called Enchanted Rock, and I
was told at that point that we
didn't have enough money and
that I had to find a new loca¬
tion, and so it was miraculous
that we managed to come up
with that." □

The man behind the literary legend.

Born in Peaster, Texas in
1906, Robert Ervin Howard
was a lean, gangly youth who
grew into a robust and power¬
ful man. Interested in writing
at an early age, he broke into
professional writing in 1925
with the sale of “Spear and
Pang" to Weird Tales.

It was Weird Tales where
his stories of Kull, Solomon
Kane and Bran Mak Morn ap¬
peared, and it was also the
birthplace of his single most
enduring creation. Conan, the
Barbarian. The December 1932
issue saw publication of his
first Conan story, “The
Phoenix on the Sword.” Al¬
though he only wrote 22 com¬
pleted Conan stories (including
one novel. Hour of the
Dragon ), these stories have not
only endured, but shaped the
genre of what would come to
be variously called Heroic Fan¬
tasy or Sword and Sorcery. Un¬
fortunately the genre has large¬
ly fallen into disrepute due to
its being measured by the bad imita¬
tions of Howard rather than by the
peak material contributed by
Howard himself.

The long road to preserving and
reviving interest in Howard's fic¬
tion began with the 1946 Arkham
House hardback Skull-face and
Others. It was followed in the *50s
by Gnome Press reprinting the Co¬
nan stories in five volumes, and
then adding a sixth with new Co¬
nan stories by L. Sprague de Camp.
One of these Gnome Press editions
was reprinted by Ace Books in
1953 as Conan the Conqueror (the
ret it led version of the novel Hour
of the Dragon). It was dc Camp
who helped to engineer the 1960s'
paperback reprints of these Conan
stories by Lancer Books. Other
new non-Howard Conan stories
were added by de Camp and Lin
Carter, and all those volumes re¬
main in print today under the Ace
Books imprint. Because de Camp
edited and revised some of
Howard's original Conan stories
for this series. Donald Grant chose
to reprint the complete original
Howard text in a series of hardcov¬
ers in the 1970s. Berkeley Books

The real Robert E. Howard, acting out
a scene from his fiction, circa 1930.

also reprinted the original Howard
Conan text in three volumes (Red
Nails, The People of the Black Cir-
cle and Hour of the Dragon) in the
late 1970s in matching hardcover
and paperback editions, but that se¬
ries ended before they could collect
all of the original stories.

While Donald Grant has been
long praised for the handsome edi¬
tions he produced of many Howard
stories, it was recently revealed that
in 1968, when Grant did Red Shad¬
ows, the first hardcover collection of
the Solomon Kane stories, the text
was extensively expurgated by
Grant to remove any possibly offen¬
sive racial references. Researcher
Steve Trout found well over a hun¬
dred alterations in this book, which
was not labeled as being "abridged"
when it was published. As a result
this text was unknowingly used for
all paperback editions for the next
25 years. Only in the 1996 Baen pa¬
perback edition Solomon Kane is the
original Weird Tales text finally re¬
stored.

By the time Howard killed him¬
self in 1936, he’d written well over
3(KI stories, most of which were pub-
lished during that very prolific
decade. Some remained unfinished

or unpublished and began to
see print in the 1960s and ’70s
thanks to Glenn I ord, who was
then the executor of the
Howard estate. A box of origi¬
nal Howard manuscripts, mis¬
placed by one of Howard’s
friends in the 1940s, was redis¬
covered in the 1960s and this
allowed some previously lost
material to be brought into
print at last. The 1970s saw the
first publication of some im¬
portant previously unseen
Howard stories including
"Marchers of Valhalla,"
“Sword Woman" and “Lord of
the Dead."

“Sword Woman," with its
clearly feminist main charac¬
ter (she’s an unwilling bride
who murders the groom in the
middle of the wedding cere¬
mony, then escapes to become
a mercenary soldier), was
decades ahead of its time and
could only have been viewed
with horror by the pulp fiction
editors of the 1930s. It is
thought by some that Novalyne
Price may well have been the inspi¬
ration for the spirited portrayal of
Dark Agnes, its heroine.

But even though Howard is sup¬
posedly well-known today for his
work, it is arguable how many people
know he did anything other than Co¬
nan, or even know that he did that
since none of the non-Howard Conan
books which proliferate today include
his name anywhere in the credits. I
once asked an average fantasy and
science-fiction fan if he knew who
created Conan? His reply was “Sir
Arthur Conan Doyle.” I kid you not.

While nearly all of Howard's fic¬
tion was in print at some time during
the 1970s, today only about 25% is
readily available, requiring fans to
haunt used book stores and dealer's
catalogues in search of out-of-print
titles. What fuels this search is the
fact that Howard was a driven
writer, and that passion comes
through in much of what he wrote.
So much so that none of Howard’s
many imitators have even come
close to matching the internal fury
that propelled this writer through his
brief but memorable career.

James Van Hise

51

Denzel Washington is an all too
human angel in a love triangle.

Penny Marshall helmed the remake
based on THE BISHOP’S WIFE (1947).

By Mike Lyons

Forget the halos, lose the
wings and don't listen for the
harp. THE PREACHER'S
WIFE offers up a very different
view of angels. “They’re capa¬
ble of emotions and getting
themselves into predicaments
that previously were left to the
human protagonists,” noted
producer Robert Greenhut, of
the film’s perspective of heav¬
enly visitors.

Under the direction of Penny
Marshall, THE PREACHER’S
WIFE takes its spiritual cue from
the classic 1947 film, THE
BISHOP’S WIFE, which
starred Cary Grant, David
Niven and Loretta Young. In
this re-make, Denzel Wash¬
ington plays Dudley, a suave
angel who comes down to
earth to help answer the
prayers of Reverend Henry
Biggs (Courtney B. Vance).
Reverend Biggs' parish is a
poor one and his church is
threatened with destruction.
Walt Disney’s Touchstone
Pictures opens the film na¬
tionwide December 13.

In the new update, Dudley
installs himself in the Rev¬
erend's life, enchanting the

Reverend’s young son, Jeremiah
(Justin Pierre Edmund). In addi¬
tion, the angel befriends the Rev¬
erend’s wife Julia (Whitney
Houston) breaking a major rule
in the angel guidebook.

Dudley becomes smitten
with Julia, setting up a unique
love triangle and a bit of torn
conscience for the angel. “He’s
not Superman or a fairy godfa¬
ther,” said producer Greenhut of
the character. “He’s got limits.
He has abilities that are super¬
natural, but he also has human
limitations that haven’t changed
since he left his mortal life."

In the role of Dudley, Denzel

Washington brings a suave de¬
meanor to the character that, ac¬
cording to Greenhut, comes
across even when Washington
isn’t acting. “His presence is so
charismatic, in a way that works
for an angel. You can just have a
shot of him silent and it goes a
long way. His intrinsic charm
was more than I expected.”

Filling such a role, once in¬
habited by Cary Grant, is no
easy task, and neither is re-mak-
ing a classic and beloved film.
According to Greenhut, the film-
makers weren’t concerned with
the comparisons that come with
contemporizing past films.

"There are 450 films being made
a year, so you have to think
about doing some things that
have been done before.” The
producer also said that, beyond
the plot of THE BISHOP’S
WIFE, they tried not to lean too
heavily on the original for inspi¬
ration. The attraction for re-mak¬
ing the film was the dynamic re¬
lationship between Dudley, Julia
and the Preacher. “The fact that
the angel becomes part of a ro¬
mantic triangle is very provoca¬
tive,” said Greenhut. “The ro¬
mantic triangle is something that
made THE BISHOP’S WIFE
unique and that’s what we liked
about it.”

Bringing this story to the
screen proved to be no easy
task. In an ironic twist, the
angels just weren’t cooperat¬
ing. The day before the first
day of shooting in Newark,
New Jersey and Yonkers,
New York, Mother Nature
decided to deliver the “Bliz¬
zard of ’96;" a few months
later, a scene which would
require the actors to skate on
a pond coincided with the
Spring thaw, leaving the cast
standing in slush. “I think
that was a blessing actually,”
laughed production designer

Producer Robert Greenhutt makes a cameo appearance as Gregory Hines shows
Courtney B. Vance (Preacher Biggs) a model of the church development.

52

PRODUCER ROBERT GREENHUT

“Whether it’s a kid in a man’s body [BIG]
or an angel arriving to help a family, you
have to take it seriously. You can’t be
embarrassed by that little bit of fantasy. 7 ’

(Clockwise from right) Oscar-winner Denzel Washington, Justin Pierre Edmund,
Darvel Darvls Jr., Jenifer Lewis, Courtney B. Vance and Whitney Houston.

Bill Groom.

To help establish the look of
PREACHER’S WIFE, Groom
took some extra pains during the
pre-production process. “One
thing that Penny and I did, early
on, is we met with some minis¬
ters of the same denomination as
our minister in the film. We
talked about the pressures of the
minister and a lot of ideas grew
out of that.”

One of these ideas was the
fact that the location and the ar¬
chitecture in the film shouldn't
be too much like the quaint small
town of the original and yet, at
the same time, shouldn't be too
much a part of the urban '90s
either. “It’s a story that spans
many generations, “ noted
Groom. “It’s a contemporary
story and a timeless story at
the same time. Once you de¬
termine that that’s the idea,
then the look of the film sort
of falls in place.”

Director Marshall also
wanted to employ a similar
feel that can be found in her
last genre film, 1988’s BIG.
Like that film, THE
PREACHER'S WIFE is a
fantasy with its feet firmly
planted in real life. Just as
Marshall had convinced au¬

diences that a boy inhabiting a
man’s body could indeed get a
job in Manhattan, she knew that
audiences had to believe that an
angel could just walk into this
neighborhood. “Angels don't
always make big spectacular
appearances,” said Groom,
"they’re not show-offs. Angels
arc there to put a hand on the
shoulder. Traditionally, angels
are really messengers. In this
case, the message to Henry is
really to look around and to
look at himself and see what he
has — his family, his congrega¬
tion and his community — and
not to give up on those things.”

“You have to fall this side of
reality,” noted Greenhut. “You
have to address everything as
though it’s real and that rule of
thumb is definitely applied to
THE PREACHER'S WIFE.
Whether it’s a kid in a man’s
body, which is impossible, or an
angel arriving to help a family,
which we think is impossible,
you have to take it seriously.
You can’t be embarrassed by
that little bit of fantasy.” He also
adds, “You want to root for the
people and feel for them and get
involved with them. If they’re
doing things that are totally ‘out
of whack' with what you'd be
doing, it becomes a different
type of experience, you detach
from it emotionally.”

One of the major emotional
draws in THE PREACHER'S
WIFE will no doubt be music.
With the addition of a gospel
choir, not to mention the voice
of Whitney Houston, the story
has been infused with a new dy¬
namic. Greenhut noted that he
realized early on in the produc¬
tion process that music was go¬
ing to play a tremendous role in
the film. “Months before we
started shooting, we had the
principal actors go through a
reading of the script. We got to
a point where there's a notation
in the script that somebody
sings ‘Joy to the World.’ So,
Whitney just started singing an

Whitney Houston (left) as Julia Biggs, wife of a troubled preacher, whose prayers for
guidance are answered in the guise of an angel named Dudley (Denzel Washington.)

acappcla version of ‘Joy to the
World.’ It was unbelievable!
Everything just sort of stopped
for a moment.”

This awe-struck spirit contin¬
ued to infect the cast and crew,
while they were shooting. “It’s a
movie that has an angel in it, but
the real magic was in Whitney’s
voice,” noted Groom. “There
were many times that we were
shooting in the church that it was
much more like a church service
than it was a film shoot.” In fact,
while filming a musical number
with the Gospel choir, the cast
and crew became so inspired by
the music, they didn’t listen to
director Marshall’s commands to
cut. “One night it just went on
for hours,” remembered Green¬
hut. “It was just this wonderful,
spontaneous Gospel jam session.

I hope that some of the emotion
that we enjoyed translates to the
film in some way.”

Producer Robert Greenhut
also added that it was amazing
to see how filming PREACH¬
ER’S WIFE had such an impact
on everyone involved. “An elec¬
trician walked up to me one day
and said, 4 I just want you to
know that we’re really happy to
be working on this kind of film.
Everything else I’ve been work¬
ing on has been violent or sensa¬
tionalists material.’ He couldn’t
tell me how pleased he was to
just be doing a film that was
about caring, love and basic
values.”

Designer Bill Groom not¬
ed that such feelings proba-
bly stem from THE
PREACHER’S WIFE’S uni¬
versal message, which he
said stated that, “Wc should
look at what we have. We
should value where we are in
life. There’s also an element
of making things better, that
when you’re faced with
problems, not abandoning
problems, but finding ways
to solve them. In the process,
you’re strengthened and
made better from it.”

53

Director Nora Ephron takes a different
look at Heaven’s number one angel.

Director Nora Ephron (r) and sister Della (I), co-author and executive producer, during
filming. They acquired the story from another director, after that project fell through.

By Scott Tracy
Griffin

If you have any precon¬
ceptions about angels, leave
them behind before going to
see MICHAEL. The Turner
Pictures production, starring
John Travolta, offers a decid¬
edly off-beat view of the most
famous member of the heav¬
enly host and God’s emissary,
the angel, Michael. New Line
Cinema opens the film na¬
tionwide December 20.

MICHAEL, which was
co-written, directed, and
produced by Nora Ephron
(SLEEPLESS IN SEATTLE),
concerns the quest of a crew
of tabloid journalists investi¬
gating a report that the
archangel Michael is living in Iowa. What
they find belies their (and the audience’s) ex¬
pectations. Michael is a scruffy, average Joe-
type with prodigious wings. Though obvious¬
ly not a garden variety homo sapiens,
Michael doesn't behave like an angel, either.

“He’s a very naughty angel; he loves
earthly things, like women and beer and
having a wonderful time,” said Delia
Ephron, executive producer, co-writer, and
Nora’s sister. M He’s a tremendously pas¬
sionate character. Nora and I believe that
fun is an underrated quality. Michael is a
person who makes the most of every mo¬
ment, and that’s very engaging. He’s a joy-
bug, like John Travolta, so it was a very
good match in temperament.”

The skeptical journalists soon find out
that Michael is indeed real, and that he has a
special purpose for his earthly visit. Every¬
one’s destiny will be affected, including
cynical head reporter Frank Quinlan
(William Hurt), “angel expert” Dorothy
Winters (Andie MacDowell), journalist

sidekick Huey Driscoll (Robert Pastorelli)
and Sparky the mutt, the magazine’s mascot
with his own column (albeit, one ghosted
by Huey). Among the other players in this
saga are National Mirror publisher Malt
(Bob Hoskins), who has demanded a live
angel with the tabloid crew's jobs at stake;
Pansy Milbank (Jean Stapleton), the Iowan
whose letter alerts the magazines to
Michael's visit; and Teri Garr as Judge Es¬
ther Newberg.

Michael's journey to the screen took
several years. Penned by journalists Peter
Dexter and Jim Quinlan, and based on
Quinlan's experiences with The National
Enquirer in the mid-1970s, the screenplay
was in the hands of another director when
Nora and Delia discovered it. After the ini¬
tial project didn't pan out, they acquired the
rights and rewrote it as a romantic comedy.

Michael offered a unique challenge to vi¬
sual effects supervisor Stephen Rosenbaum
and his crew from Sony Imagcworks. They
were charged with creating wings that

blended seamlessly into Tra¬
volta's performance, provid¬
ing the illusion of one organ¬
ic entity. Rosenbaum is a re¬
cent transplant to Image-
works, having followed his
mentor, longtime Industrial
Light and Magic (ILM) em¬
ployee Ken Ralston south in
January to turn Imagcworks
into a competitive force in
the industry. After its launch,
nearly four years ago. Image-
works garnered accolades for
its work on SPEED. MON¬
EY TRAIN, and JAMES
AND THE GIANT PEACH
before recruiting Ralston to
head the company.

“ILM does many things
well, and we were offered
the opportunity to do some¬
thing equally as wonderful," commented
Rosenbaum of his transfer. Rosenbaum,
who joined ILM's six initial employees
shortly after graduating from U.C. Berke¬
ley, labored for eight years under the tute¬
lage of Ralston, and witnessed the birth of
the computer generated effects industry
firsthand. "THE ABYSS was our break¬
through project,” stated Rosenbaum. “In the
effects business, that was the first indication
that computer graphics was here to stay,
that it could play a pivotal role in how we
do effects work.

“From that point on, the industry quick¬
ly changed." Rosenbaum continued. "Over
the course of three years, the traditional
means of doing effects work switched its
focus entirely into computer generated-ef-
fects, meaning 3D characters and 2D com¬
positing techniques. These things could
easily be done in the computer graphics
world, especially by the time we did TER¬
MINATOR 2.”

Among Rosenbaum’s other credits at

54

out the wings.

Studley, who cut her teeth in Jim Hen¬
son’s London Creature Shop, is rapidly gar¬
nering a reputation for her work in the in¬
dustry. After working on THE FLINT-
STONES, her next project, BABE, netted an
Oscar; current projects include Eddie Mur¬
phy’s take on DR. DOOLITTLE and the
live-action GEORGE OF THE JUNGLE.

Stiffy was crafted by Karen Keener, and
took two months to complete, including six

weeks of punching in the hair by hand, one
strand at a time. The result was so convinc¬
ing that the model became the unofficial
crew mascot. The final model for the pro¬
duction. a Spanish bull, was a puppet akin
to the one lowered into the raptor pen in
JURASSIC PARK. ADI partner Tom
Woodruff, Jr. operated the bull from inside,
with the aid of eight puppeteers.

Angels are a popular trend in contempo¬
rary pop culture, and Travolta’s earthy in¬
terpretation provides an interesting counter¬
point to the usual pious versions. Ephron
was astounded to learn that 69% of Ameri¬
cans in a recent poll professed a belief in
the heavenly intercessors, and attributes it
to our trying times. “I think people need
more spirituality than what exists around
them,” she said. “This world has become
more difficult to live in; there’s a need to
have a larger spiritual life.”

When asked why a mighty warrior of
heaven like Michael would concern himself
with two mortals’ love lives, Ephron
replied, “Because the battlefield of love is
as challenging as any battle in life.” □

Above: Travolta, outfitted with wings designed, constructed and operated by Amalgamated
Dynamics. Right: Preparing the actor for the complex effects shot and camera moves.

ILM were JURASSIC PARK, DEATH BE¬
COMES HER. and FORREST GUMP, for
which the team won an Academy Award.

Rosenbaum remains an adherent of the
school that recognizes the importance of
physical models, however. “Everybody
thinks computers arc a budget’s saving
grace; in truth, we’re pushing the envelope
even more, creating a need for additional R
and D and more money,” he commented.

The physical effects for Michael were
provided by Amalgamated Dynamics Incor¬
porated (ADI). They include Michael’s
wings, a belligerent butt that has a dispute
with the archangel, and Sparky's anima-
tronic alter-ego, dubbed “Stiffy.” Anima-
tronic model designer Kate Studley was re¬
sponsible for four different versions of
Michael’s wings. The eight-foot wide rod-
puppet hero wings were mounted on a plate
attached to a vest that Travolta wore under
his clothing. The wings were articulated by
two puppeteers, who were later removed
through the magic of computers.

Folded wings were attached directly to Tra¬
volta’s back for a shirtless scene, and required
painstaking attention to detail. A vacuform of
Travolta’s body was made, and the light¬

weight wings designed to fit to
the actor's back. A pair of servo
motors in Travolta’s boxer shorts provided the
wings with a realistic bobbing effect.

A top half set of wings was created to al¬
low Travolta to drive a car, while a bottom
half set was used in a dancing sequence fo¬
cusing on the angel’s fancy footwork. Ini¬
tially hired to craft the hero wings, Studley
was asked to stay on the duration of the pro¬
ject, filmed in Austin, Texas and Chicago,
as the “wing wrangler.”

“John never complained,” emphasized
Studley, despite long sessions to fit the fold¬
ed wings, and glue individual feathers di¬
rectly to his back to provide a realistic ap¬
pearance. Travolta's sense of humor and
store of old movies provided the makeup
crew with entertainment while they went
about the exacting chore, which took an
hour every morning and every afternoon,
since Travolta removed the wings for lunch.

One challenge to the filmmakers was the
fact that there arc no bird feathers large
enough for an angel’s flight feathers. Stud¬
ley improvised, creating artificial feathers
through vacuforming, and used bleached
turkey, goose, and chicken feathers to fill

CCHe’s a very naughty
angel; he loves earthly
things, like women and
beer and having a
wonderful time. He’s a
joybug, like John.”

—Exec. Producer Delia Ephron—

55

MTV’s animated kings of slack get off

By Mike Lyons

Aliens attacking the White
House and monstrous torna¬
does tearing up farms arc
nothing compared to this big
screen shock — Beavis and
Butt-Head have made a
movie! Yes, those two lovable
morons, who separate every¬
thing into the categories:

“Cool" and “Sucks” will be
starring in BEAVIS AND
BUTT-HEAD DO AMERI¬
CA, which Paramount opens
nationwide December 20.

Since premiering on TV
in 1993, Beavis and Butt-
Head have taken off with a
popularity that surprises
even creator Mike Judge. “I
try not to think about it too
much," he admitted. "I’ve al¬
ways tried to go for the bel¬
ly-laughs stuff, just following my instincts
and never questioning them."

Judge majored in physics in college and
after graduating, worked for the government
on fighter plane electronic test systems. Soon
after. Judge decided to change jobs and pur¬
sued more creative endeavors by moving in¬
to a career in music. One night, he went to an
animation festival at a local theatre, which
led to an obsession with the medium.

In 1991, after making some home-made,
animated short subjects with an old movie
camera. Judge came up with two teenage
characters, one a blond, bug-eyed wild man
and the other a dim fellow, saddled with
braces. The looks for the two characters came
to Judge while trying to draw a caricature of a
high school classmate. “The version that be¬
came Beavis, for some reason, I drew him
with a lighter in one hand and a locust in the
other,” laughed Judge. “I don’t know what I
was thinking. It just seemed to go with his ex¬
pression. The other one was one of these situ¬
ations where I just scribbled and came back to
my sketchbook like a week or two later, saw
the picture and it actually made me laugh.”

Beavis and Butt-Head made their debut

house and since then, the
show has become the target
of many groups railing
against violence in television.
Judge, however, defended his
creation, saying, "I still main¬
tain that they’re not mean-
spirited. It’s all very innocent.
They may be doing awful
things, but it’s motivated out
of just screwing around and
not knowing any better.”

Having made it through said
controversy, the two boys now
move onto even bigger territo¬
ry with their film BEAVIS
AND BUTT-HEAD DO
AMERICA. "I really want
people to know that this movie
is absolutely not going to be an
hour and a half of them on the
couch," said Judge. In order to
get the boys out of their usual
environment. Judge came up
with an ingenious plot point. “I always thought
that the movie had to begin with the IV being
stolen, that would keep them from going back
to their living room.”

Beavis and Butt-Head go in search of
their most prized possession and run into a
sleazy hood named “Muddy,” who mistakes
the two intrepid explorers for hit men he’s
hired to kill his ex-wife. When he asks
Beavis and Butt-Head if they'll take
$1(),IHK) to “do" his ex-wife, the two overtly
horny teenagers connote a new meaning for
“do" and quickly agree. The boys are off to
Vegas, where events continue to snowball,
culminating with a cross country trek with
Muddy, his ex-wife and two ATF agents,
while being chased by a group of tourists.

Never once was there any reluctance on
the part of Beavis and Butt- Head’s creator
to bringing his characters to the screen. “I
was actually really into it,” admitted Judge.
“It wasn’t like I was going around saying,
‘This must be a movie!’ But when they
called I was like, ‘Oh yeah. You bet ya.’’’

Like many past TV-to-movie segues.
Judge said he knew he didn’t want BEAVIS
AND BUTT-HEAD to look as if it was

Beavis & Butt-head creator Mike Judge with MTV animation director Yvette Kaplan,
rendering the characters In the glory of hand-painted cel animation.

in the short, and self-explanatory, film
FROG BASEBALL, which was part of
1992 s SICK AND TWISTED FESTIVAL
OF ANIMATION. Even during the produc¬
tion of their first film. Judge knew he was
on to something with the characters. “I re¬
member a girl at the film lab saying,

‘They're cute.'And I thought, ‘Really?!

These are ugly, obnoxious guys, batting
around a frog and acting like idiots.'”

Soon after, Beavis and Butt-Head be¬
came part of MTV's show LIQUID TELE¬
VISION, which features cutting edge ani¬
mation and filmmaking. From here, the two
“kings of slack” got their own show, which
consisted of them sitting vacant-eyed in
front of their TV. verbally decimating what¬
ever music video happens to be on. When
they would venture off the couch, it was
usually to look for trouble and wreak havoc.

Thus, a pop-culture phenomena of gar¬
gantuan proportions was born. The two char¬
acters were splattered across every piece of
merchandise available and even became em¬
broiled in a controversy. An episode which
aired in October of 1993 is said to have in¬
spired a young Ohio boy to set fire to his

56

the couch.

The MTV comic slackers gel off their couch and away from their tube for a little political
commentary, opening from Paramount on December 20.

"stretching” its situation for the big screen.
“It’s tricky," he noted. “The temptation is. for
the convenience of writing your plot, to make
the characters smarter than they are. But you
really have to take the harder path, which is
to keep them completely in character from
beginning to end."

For inspiration. Judge turned to another
big screen moron. “I love Peter Sellers*
movies—the SHOT IN THE DARK and
THE PINK PANTHER movies—and in
those, Clouseau was never sappy, he was
never smart, he was always a bumbling id¬
iot through the whole thing, and yet there
was always a story."

Judge has used this observation as inspi¬
ration for BEAV1S AND BUTT-HEAD DO
AMERICA, which he co-wrote with Joe
Stillman. But, as he docs on the show. Judge
proved to be a real Renaissance man when it
comes to Beavis and Butt-Head. Not only
does he also direct the film, but, as he has
done since their debut, he will also provide
the voices for the two protagonists. For in¬
spiration in this area. Judge once again went
back to his aforementioned high school
classmate. “He wasn’t anything like Beavis,
he was actually a straight-A student who sat
in the front of the class. But.
he had this laugh, where he
used to bite his lower lip. So
it started out as just me do¬
ing that and kind of evolved
into something else. I don’t
know what I was thinking
with Butt-Head. I was try¬
ing to just make the stupid¬
est, most vacant sound I
could make."

For Judge, an equal chal¬
lenge has come in animating
the two characters for the
film. Part of the show's ap¬
peal, like ROCKY AND
BULLWINKLE, is actually
BEAVIS AND BUTT-
HEAD's lack of fluid ani¬
mation; the scrawl-like
drawings look as if they be¬
long in the margins of a high
school student’s notebook.

For BEAVIS AND BUTT-HEAD DO
AMERICA, Judge has tried to apply fuller
animation, while still retaining the “low-bud¬
get feel" of the show. “The shots are more
cinematic with dramatic angles," said Judge.
“But, we’re keeping Beavis and Butt-Head
intact, as far as the way they talk and their
look. They absolutely look and talk the same.
The show, in the last few seasons, has gotten
a lot fuller without loosing any of the charm
of the way that they move. The movie lakes
this to the next level."

Judge also added that audiences may in¬
deed be surprised by the look of the film. “It
looks really great on the big screen. It’s

done traditionally, inked and painted on cels
and shot on film. People haven’t seen that
in a while. The computer method that’s
used nowadays in all the major features
looks pretty good, but there's a real nice
kind of softness to cels and the watercolor
backgrounds we’re using."

From the doodle scratched in Mike Judge’s
sketchbook to the big-screen, it’s been quite a
ride for Beavis and Butt-Head, and an inter¬
esting ride for their creator as well. “I really
feel like I’ve been separate from it," said
Judge. “I’ve gone on TV, I’ve gone on LET-
TERMAN and that was really great. Every
now and then, it will really freak me out. But,
when the show was really
hitting big. like the summer
of ’93, 1 moved to New York
with my wife and had one
kid at the time. I would take
the train home and we would
sit in our little condo and
didn’t know anybody. There
was really nothing glam¬
orous or exciting, it was just
a lot of work."

Mike Judge admits, howev¬
er. that all this work pays off,
and he continues to get
“freaked out" each time he
sees a few moments from
BEAVIS AND BUTT-HEAD
DO AMERICA. “It’s funny
to see these beautifully paint¬
ed backgrounds and huge
things happening and then cut
to Beavis and Butt-Head go¬
ing, ‘Huh-huh-huh.’’’ □

Beavis & Butt-Head go disco, a sumptuous cartoon look that retains
the economy of the TV show's limited animation look.

By Dan Persons

A case of pneumonia pretty much took
me out of the game for the bulk of the sum¬
mer, so I wasn't able to impart my unique
spin to much of the season’s output. Before
we get too far into these dark days of win¬
ter, though (and at the risk of permanently
antagonizing the guys who actually pay me
for this stuff). 1 just wanted to say, in all
humbleness, that TWISTER sucked! My
Cod! 11 was .vo stupid!! And boring!!! I
don t know how this thing wound up becom¬
ing one of the top grossers of the year. I
don ’/ know how the thing got funded! I tell
ya, if they come up with a TWISTER II. it 'll
demonstrate not only a total bankruptcy of
creutivity in Holly¬
wood, but also will
serve as concrete evi¬
dence of the complete
collapse of Western
civilization.

PLAYING THE
FUTURE CARD.

Despite the grous¬
ing above, there are
signs that all may not
be lost in the world of
feature filmmaking. Take, for instance. Fresco
Pictures, an L.A. start-up which has shelled
out $400,000 for the entire literary catalog of
the much-praised, and occasionally controver¬
sial, science fiction author. Orson Scott Card.
At the same time. Fresco has gone into part¬
nership with producer Bob Chartoff (THE
RIGHT STUFF. RAGING BULL), pledging
itself to a total of SI.5 million to purchase
Card’s Nebula and Hugo award-winning nov¬
el, Ender'sCame. Sonuvagun, some people in
Hollywood do read btxiks!

While the handsome purchase price
allows Card the freedom to rub elbows
with the likes of Joe Eszterhas (if he real¬
ly feels like slumming), the author him¬
self admitted that money was not the on¬
ly criterion by which he decided who
would produce his story of a young boy’s
grueling indoctrination into the realities
of interplanetary warfare. “ Ender's Game
has been on the market for years,” the au¬
thor explained. “I’ve had a steady stream
of inquiries ever since it was published in
hardcover back in *85. But everybody al¬
ways had the standard, Hollywood ap¬
proach, which is: ‘Oh, you’re a genius!
This is wonderful, it’s brilliant... Here’s
how we’ll fix it.’And the way that they
would fix it is to turn it into THE LAST
STARF1GHTER, invariably: make Ender
a teenager and give him a love interest. I

□RSDN SCOTT CARD

ENDER'S WAR

Orson Scott Card (L) has nurtured the screen
rights to his science Action saga of a young boy’s
grueling indoctrination into Interplanetary warfare.

just wasn’t terribly interested in taking
Ender's Came and turning it into any
[other) story. 1 had to keep Ender young.

“I learned after the first option that was
taken on it—which fortunately was by the
same producer who did ENEMY MINE, so
when that tanked, he lost all ability to get
funding for ambitious science-fiction proj¬
ects, and so the option lapsed—but I
learned my lessons from what he was going
to do to butcher the story. From then on. I
had it as a clause in the contract: no matter
what, Ender must be played as under 12
years of age. And, boy. that sent most peo¬
ple scampering away.”

Those that did bite were not necessar¬
ily those that Card was eager to have
digging their talons into his brainchild.
Said the author, “Some of them were so
cute; they thought they could fool me.
They'd have a clause in the contract that
said, ‘Ender will be played 12 years old,
give or take four years.’ Like I can't do
the math. Or they would make their
‘best effort’ to portray Ender under 12
years of age, which meant two guys sit
in a room and go, ‘Well, whaddya think,
should we make Ender 12? Naaaaaaah.’
And there it is, you've just had the dis¬
cussion.

“Along came another production compa¬
ny a few years ago that agreed to that par¬

ticular [clause), but they also agreed that I
would write the screenplay, and there were
certain, strict statements about what they
had to pay me before they had a screenplay
written. But they had one written anyway,
by somebody else. I won’t mention any
names, but he was at the time an intern with
them, and may well have been innocent in
intention, though I've since heard that he's
been marketing it himself, which is a real
no-no and he needs to stop. I never read it.
They told me that they'd had it done ‘just to
test out the special effects prices.’ Of
course, I would write my draft, but they in¬
sisted that I read (the alternate version).
Well, I didn't. I refused. I wouldn’t do it;
I’m not going to let anybody say that I
adapted my screenplay from somebody
else. I’m going to adapt it from my book."

The option with that company merci¬
fully lapsed, and Card was eventually free
to sign-on with Fresco and Chartoff Pro¬
ductions, who not only agreed to the age
requirements and the price, hut also set
Card loose on his own screenplay and
promised him a producer's slot in the
credits. Drafts were being ironed out in
the fall of ’96, with the hopes of sending
the project around to the studios not long
after. While a compression of the book’s
six year time frame should make casting
of the crucial child roles easier, no tal¬
ent—cither before or behind the camera—
has been attached. For his part. Card
claimed to be campaigning for Mel Gib¬
son as director.

One man pitted against an army of cam¬
era-struck pre-adolescents. Now that is a
Braveheart.

MISSING DIRECTOR HITS
THE LOST HIGHWAY

The road to innovation is seldom a
smooth one. Just ask David Lynch, w ho
stirred up tectonic shock waves in Holly¬
wood with such delirious features as
BLUE VELVET and the cult TV show
TWIN PEAKS, then came a-cropper with
the PEAKS prcqucl feature FIRE WALK
WITH ME (even European audiences
booed it) and the ill-fated television com¬
edy ON I’HE AIR (a series so reviled that
one critic dubbed it the worst show in the
history of television—a bit of an overre-
action, I think; the guy apparently never
saw SUPERTRAIN). Lynch’s reaction
was both understandable and prudent:
keep a low profile, turn his efforts to un¬
credited commercial work, and plot his
return. This February will see whether
the director’s extended hiatus has been a
beneficial one, when October Films re-

58

AWBA©TO®III

leases Lynch's latest effort,

LOST HIGHWAY.

Don't expect that the years
have mellowed the famously
idiosyncratic director. In synop¬
sis, LOST HIGHWAY reads as
pure Lynch: there’s ID4*s Bill
Pullman, playing a jazz saxo¬
phonist, whose marriage to Pa¬
tricia Arquette is shattered when
the man is accused of murder
and ends up on death row. From
that Hitchcockian kick-off, the
film then takes a sharp left-turn
into the stratosphere as the in¬
carcerated Pullman undergoes a
profound physical transforma¬
tion. emerging eventually as
none other than Balthazar Get¬
ty (LORI) OF THE FLIES,

WHITE SQUALL). Add in
nocturnal murders in the Mojave desert,
gross-out autopsy sequences, and a quick,
first-person guided tour inside the human
skull, and you can practically hear the die¬
hard ERASERHEAD fans weeping for joy.

*'It didn’t seem like (Lynch| was trying
to prove anything." said Michael Burnett,
who developed the film's extensive
makeup effects and logged considerable
time on-set with the director. “I never got
that feeling. The spontaneity was a lot
more than usual. That made it more diffi¬
cult. because things would change, sched¬
uling-wise. and when you're doing pros¬
thetics, which requires sculpting and
molding and casting and everything, and
you’re working on a budget, it’s not like
you can just say, ‘Oh, let's shoot this to¬
morrow,’ and throw five guys on it so
they can stay up all night and finish it.
There were a couple of times where that
was a lough one: the schedule would
change and something that was going to
be shot later got moved up, or the way it
was to be shot changed at the last minute.
Just kinda thinking on our feet, we would
have to come up with a w'ay to create that
effect in less time, or with some different
technique.”

What made it worthwhile, according to
Burnett, was the opportunity to play around
in the director’s twisted, little world-view:
“The most Lynchian shot in the movie, I
thought, was the shot where the coroner is
in the lab, examining a body, and he throws
a cigarette down and the camera pans down
and follows the cigarette into the drain and
there’s little bits of flesh and hair in the
drain. I had to get down there and help
David put that all together.”

Sounds like a perfect Lynch moment.

HfillHI

I .* I

Above: David Lynch directing Balthazar Getty in THE LOST HIGHWAY, after his
transformation from Bill Pullman, opening in February by October Films.

Welcome home, Dave.

TRAILERS

Summer was pretty much a wash for me
(although at the lowest ebb 1 was under the
rather cool delusion that poet Jim Carrol
was trying to reprogram mv brain—very
THIRL) ROCK MEETS BASKETBALL
DIARIES, don’tcha think?). Fortunately, I
snapped out of my dclcrium just in time to
see things get very interesting in the film
industry. To wit... After months of rumors,
Disney announced a distribution deal with
media giant Tokurna Shoten Publishing
Co., which will include the worldwide
video release of eight features by anime
master Hayao Miyazaki. Included in the
deal will be Miyazaki’s upcoming film,
PRINCESS MONONOKE (and we can
only hope that the contract will also incor¬
porate such prior titles as NAUSICAA OF
THE VALLEY OF WIND and the excel¬
lent KIKI’S DELIVERY SERVICE)...
Kevin Costner is going for a slightly drier
brand of science fiction with THE POST¬
MAN, his first directorial effort since
DANCES WITH WOLVES. Based on the
David Brin novel, with a script by Eric
Roth and Brian llclgcland, the Warner
Bros, film follows the adventures of a stoic
loner who holds post-apocalyptic civiliza¬
tion together by assuming the role of die¬
hard letter carrier for the survivors. Just
make sure you gel that postage right,
scumbag... Voices signed for the upcoming
GEN 13 animated feature: Alicia Witt will
play the well-sculpted Caitlin Fairchild;
Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Flea has been cho¬
sen for the role of uber-slacker Grunge;
head-honcho Lynch has been given to John
dcLancie, while Mark Hamill will voice

(big shock!!) villain Thresh¬
old...

Senator Film Productions’
ads for the apparently animated
German feature WERNER
come stamped with the legends,
“100% TRICK FILM,” and
“THE FASTEST KRAUT IN
TOON.” I have no idea what
these phrases mean... Polygram
Filmed Entertainment will re¬
lease PHOTOGRAPHING
FAIRIES, a fantasy in which a
photographer sets out to de¬
bunk a series of supernatural
photographs and discovers, to
disatrous effect, that the images
are real. Principal photography
started in September ’%, under
the direction of Nick Willing...
Spumco’s coming back. The
REN AND STIMPY shop has already de¬
livered a combo live-action/animated mu¬
sic video for Bjork, and has signed with
Hanna-Barbera to produce a scries of three,
seven-minute shorts featuring YOGI
BEAR’s Ranger Smith character... Angela
Bassett has signed on to join Jodie Foster,
Matthew McConaughey, James Woods,
and John Hurt in the upcoming Warner
Bros.’ film, CONTACT. Director Robert
Zemeckis gets back to the genre with this
adaptation of the Carl Sagan/Ann Druyan
book... Yes, they’re finally getting around
to bringing LOST IN SPACE to the big
screen. Akiva Goldsman has written the
script. Stephen Hopkins will direct. New
Line will release. My only concern is that,
at this rate, we’ll have to wait thirty vears
for that HOMEBOYS IN OUTER SPACE
feature to be released.

EH, WHAT’S (BANKR)UP(T), DOC?

Hey, how about that
SPACE JAM, huhn? Frankly,
spending a reported $100
million on a livc-action/ani-
mation hybrid based on, of
all things, a TV commercial
would seem a dubious propo-
sition in any year. If this
flies, though, think of the
repercussions: do you really
want to go to the multiplex
and discover that the only
thing you can get for your
eight bucks is a romantic
comedy featuring that puffy,
little troll from the Nissan
commercials?

I didn't think so. Sweet
dreams. | ]

59

FILM RATINGS

•••• Must See
••• Excellent
•• Good
• Mediocre
o Poor

BEASTMASTER III:

THE EYE OF BRAXUS

tHrrdfd by. (iibrirllr Hnumnni WR itidirilioa.
ML 2 bn Wllb: Marc Siagrr. Tmj Todd, Kef III
(aHlmriL Sandra Caiper Van I Pirn, Patrick

Kilpatrick. Lnkj-Aaae Down, Ditid Wirwr.

This is the third in the BEAST-
M AS II:R film series, the first being
far hack in 1982, so the most amazing
thing about it is that original lead Marc
Singer’s body is still suitably muscular
and photogenic. There are a lot of bad
wigs in evidence tn this sword and sor¬
cery tale, which lakes itself far too seri¬
ously instead of trying for a light touch.
The plot is alt about chasing the
McGuffin of a pendant that is the key
to some kind of magic hut when it is Ti¬
na lly unlocked, out pops a cute little
monster (courtesy of the Chiodo Broth¬
ers) who looks more like one of the
Henson DINOSAURS than anything
menacing.

I like animals more than E like peo¬
ple, so I am rigidly opposed to their use
in films, especially when they have to
perform stunts. In the first BEAST-
MASTER film, a lovely tiger died from
being painted black, a pointless waste of
life. This time around, a male lion (who
looks medicaled throughout the entire
film—he’s always yawning and his
mouth hangs thirstily open) is trapped in
a net and tormented by spears for far loo
long, which makes the fictitious nasti¬
ness of villain David Warner pale in
comparison • Judith Harris

The burning zone

UFN WrrU* Srrin. 9 %. M) minv With: Dm

Mitkm. Mkluri Him*. Jamn Rbtk. limit a Ti»mi-
IA

X marks the spot. X-F1LES, that is.
Ever since the Fox series began creep¬
ing its way up the Nielsen charts and
onto magazine covers, the networks
(including Fox themselves) started
searching for a clone. This is UPN's
entry in the copycat sweepstakes. Like
the others, it will disappear quickly,
and it won’t take Scully and Mulder to
discover the reasons why.

On the surface, this has many of the
stylistic touches which makes THE X-
FILES so mesmerizing: moody, omi¬
nous lighting; tnld camera angles; and a
brooding score. Unfortunately, it does¬
n't utilize them as effectively. Instead
of clandestine government doings and
otherworldly phenomena, the plot cen¬
ters around an ancient virus which can
think for itself and control other virus¬
es, Ludicrous? It gels worse. When it
takes over a human body it apparently
can communicate in English as well-—
never mind that it's been trapped in a
tomb for thousands of years.

Is there actually anyone out there
yearning for a weekly series about a
deadly outbreak? One fails to see the
entertainment value in watching people

become ill. The series concept is DO A
from its disastrously limiting premise
alone. The show will probably linger
on UPN’s schedule for a little while,
then promptly fade aivay like a bad
cold,

o Michael Sutton

DARKMAN III:

DIE DARKMAN DIE

Dimrtrd by Bradford Ma>. MCA.Tactful, « «7

mmulrv H Hill) JrfT E-A.hr>. \rnold Xmkm. Miriam#
MurRrl. Katana Higg»-Daw wia.

'Die third installment of the DARK¬
MAN series, filmed along with the sec¬
ond, is no improvement. Director Brad¬
ford May can expertly create moody
lighting, but he lacks originator Sam
Raimi’s directorial flair (shots from the
original keep popping up in rapid mon¬
tage sequences that arc meant to con¬
vey explosive emotions but lack any
emotional power).

The plot concerns a crime boss, Pe¬
ter Rooker (Jeff Fahey) who has been
secretly selling athletes steroids and
sees in Darkman’s (Arnold VosLoo) su¬
perhuman strength the potential to
make millions. Parkman's alter ego
Westlake makes use of a physician’s
high-tech facility to use a DNA se¬
quencer to finally perfect his synthetic
skin, only to be ripped-off and have his
secret tapped by Rooker, who starts in¬
jecting his minions with the formula.

Unfortunately, this film is so igno¬
rant that a doctor does not even know
what "control animals" are, the action
scenes are blandly routine, KNB Ef¬
fects provides their usual inexpressive
mask makeup, and writers Michael
Collcary and Mike Werb do not seem
to have figured out what to do with
their brulal/sympatheiic pulp-style pro¬
tagonist, who thwarts criminals while
not giving a damn about people until he
comes to care for Rooker*s family.

• Dennis Fischer

Highlander: ioth anniver¬
sary DIRECTOR’S CUT

KMrated by Rawfl Makahy Ktpuhlk Home Video,
■it*. With: ClirUtopher Uobcn. Seio loaarry.
Ctascy Brown, Bertie Kdnry.

HIGHLANDER: 10th Anniversary

Director's Cut finally delivers the Eu¬
ropean version American fans have
long awaited. Few U,S. fans have seen
the extended footage oulside of recent
HIGHLANDER conventions and boot¬
leg PAL tapes. The anniversary edition
delivers, presenting several sequences
left out of the original U.S. theatrical
and video releases.

Key among them is the World War
II scene, in which Conner saves the life
of a young girl who grows up Hi be his
secretary, Rachel. While the U S. ver¬
sion implied a deeper relationship be¬
tween them, the extra footage confirms
it, establishing the basis for a relation¬
ship that moves from daughter to lover
to mother figure. Also included are ex¬
tended early scenes of Conner with his
clan, Kurgan’s stalking of Brenda at a
zoo, and censored footage of the Kur¬
gan in the church, cut during its initial
release, in which he licks a priest's
hand.

Presented in letterboxed format,
with a remastered Dolby Surround au¬
dio track, the video also includes the
original theatrical trailer and video
commentary from director Russell
Mulcahy and producers Peter Davis
and Bill Panzer. Running approximate¬
ly 21 minutes, the commentary pro¬
vides some interesting insights, includ¬
ing the fact that the World War II
footage was paid for out of Mulcahy,
Davis and Panzer's own pockets. Cut
from the original script, the scene was
later shot with a small video crew after
principal production was completed
(allhough it’s never explained why the
scene still wasn’t included in the Amer¬
ican version after such expense). Such
insights are too few, however. Instead,
the commentary is too casual—too
“Gee-whiz, look at this movie wc
made,"—with each member interrupt¬
ing and talking over the others, making
their discussion sometimes hard to fol¬
low and understand.

••• Matthew E, Saunders

SUIKOD EN: DEMON CENTURY

Directed bv Iflroihf Nrfiiil. A.D. Villas, l/H, 45
mi hi. Vmmf willt wbtjfSn.

Richard B. Katz plays Forrest J Ackerman, the comic co-creator rescued
from robbers by VAMPJRELLA (Talisa Soto), not quite as he envisioned her.

Okay, let’s run down the martial-
arts anime checklist here: post-apoc¬
alyptic, urban setting, check Spiri¬
tual subtext about the souls of an¬
cient warriors being reincarnated in
order to wage their climactic battle
once again, gotcha. Comely, trans¬
vestite street-fighter, uhhhhhh
Buff, trigger-happy priest, hmmmm-
mm.,. Tattooed, kick-ass ninja nun..,
now wait a minute? One part stan¬
dard action set-up—criminal syndi¬
cate wants the land an orphanage
stands on for its own nefarious
ends—-and about 20 thousand parts
quirky character lies and knowing
satire (1 just love the cute 111 * or¬
phans who cheer the priest on as he
unleashes a smart-bomb attack
against the villain's stronghold), this
anime deconstructs its own plot-
points even as it's reveling in them.
Director Hiroshi Ncgishi not only
knows how to mount a battle
scene—lots of fine animation here¬
tic then lakes it in directions you've
never considered. My favorite twist:
a rally-looking old derelict who just
so happens to be the most deadly as¬
sassin in the world—a character so
cool you’ll be sorry to see him ex¬
pire at the end (why not reincarnate
him as well?). Clearly the first in a
series, and a promising start.

•• Dan Persons

Them

Dlrvrted h> Bill Norlas. I PN. 10 96, 120 mini.
With: Scot! Piltfnui, lluttfn Voigt, 1 lirr Tarrt

UPN did il: came up with an X
FILES knock-off so ludicrous (hat
AMERICAN GOTHIC: looks like
GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS by
comparison. Ostensibly the adven¬
tures of a square-jawed meteorolo¬
gist (Scott Patterson j and his plucky,
young nephew (Dustin Voigt) as they
battle a group of aliens who want
to... well... uh... do something nasty.
THEM is such a formless mess that
one suspects its creators scripted the
thing by incorporating whatever hap¬
pened to he playing on TV at the mo¬
ment of writing. Judging by the re¬
sults. they must have been tuned to a
station that runs 24-hour cycles of
TWIN PEAKS. HEE-HAW. THE IN¬
VADERS. MONTY PYTHON AND
THE HOLY GRAIL and an endless
stream of Eternity commercials. Best
moment: it‘s a toss-up between the
exploding mastiffs and (he cigar¬
smoking dominatrix in the skinless
hoop-skirt.

Chris Carter sleeps a little more
soundly tonight. o Dan Persons

Trilogy ok terror ii

Dtncted b> l>u Cartfc. USA Network. 10 With:
I.yarltr Aftlfeoay, Richard Kiiipiirit k. Ttenn
Mtlrhril

You can go home again. Some¬
times, Director Dan Curtis apparent¬
ly discovered that, when all else
fails, head for the safety net of past
success. After the debacle of his
DARK SHADOWS remake, the di¬
rector has gone back to his 1975
made-for-TV hit, TRILOGY OF
TERROR The film starred Karen
Black in a trio of horror tales which

60

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concluded with (he nnw classic story of
a /uni fetish doll. The new anthology
stars Lysclte Anthony (KRULL*
WITHOUT A CLUE) in three roles*
"Graveyard Rats” is based cm a claus¬
trophobic Richard Mathcson story
where greed reaches into the grave and
is hampered by Eric Allard’s generally
unconvincing giant rat effects* A
stormy night complete with waves
crashing on the rocks below a dark
brooding mansion gives atmosphere to
the second lale, “Bobby,” but the idea
is too familiar to offer any real surpris¬
es, as Anthony plays the mother of a
drowned boy in a new twist on "The
Monkey's Paw." Ilie best is saved for
last with the return of the evil, nasty lit*
lie Zuni fetish doll in "He Who Kills."
The creature originated in the Mathc¬
son short story "Prey." The police find
the bodies from the first film and the
charred remains of the doll in the oven.
They take it to Anthony as anthropolo¬
gist Dr. Simpson to check for clues.
The demon soon gets its hands on a
knife and all hell breaks loose. As with
the first film, this one episode is right
up there w ith the best of TALES
PROM THE CRYPT'.

•s# Pan Scapperotti

Vampirella

( uinorUc Ncw H w ta—1 I0*t«0inia. With: Iiliu
Solo. Kitgtr Vlallrrt, Richard Jntrph Fiul. \niiii
Vrian*n,

After 20 years we're still waiting
for the real Vampirella to reach the
screen. Currently an imposter is making
the rounds on Showtime, the cable net¬
work, But, it doesn't take long to real¬
ize that she is only some deranged

Drakonian standing in for her sister.

If you tuned in to see Vampy
decked out in her Trademark costume
you were sadly disappointed. Instead
you got Talisa Soto in a mundane pair
of red shorts and a bra.

The corporate line pegs the costume
change on an inability to get the origi¬
nal costume to slay on Soto, Why didn't
they try glue? Soto is no more Vam-
pircIIa than Cathy Lee Crosby was
Wonder Woman.

The story is your basic revenge plot
albeit with a clever oulerspace vampire
connection. The inhabitants of the dis¬
tant planet of Drakulon use a synthetic
concoction to quench their thirst for
blood. When Vampirella's stepfather is
murdered by a band of renegades led by
Vlad Tepes (Roger Dali rey), she pur¬
sues them over time and space to plane!
Earth. Here she finds two opposing
forces: the vampires, led by Tepes, and
PURGE, a paramilitary group headed
by Adam Van Heising (Richard Joseph
Paul) out to free the world of these
creatures. Vampirella eventually tracks
Vlad to ihe glitter of Las Vegas for their
confrontation.

While Wynorski, who also directed
this opus and appears at least twice in
the film, keeps the action moving, the
limited budget gaps arc all too evident.
They show up in poorly staged car
crashes and effects that were old a
decade ago. In fact, effects are absent
in some scenes and we get to see re¬
sults rather than the incident. For in¬
stance, in the final confrontation be¬
tween Vlad and Vampirella, she
plunges a metal rod through the vam¬

pire. He laughingly pulls it oul when
suddenly we see a streak of lightning.
Cut back to Dal trey and he's in flames
We assume the rod was struck by the
lighlning even though it wasn't on
screen. We assume this because we've
seen it so many times before.

What should have been the high¬
light of this year's Roger Corman Pre¬
sents series on Showtime turned out to
be a major disappointment.

If you can't do it right, don't bother.

•• Dan Scapperotti

THE HAWK & THE DOVE

rontimifd from pagr 27

is based loosely on kids trading
cards, so there’s not a great deal of
depth involved and psychological
probing—except on a philosophical
level. In this movie the high arc
brought low and the low arc
brought high."

The actor added that, despite
trading card origins. "You still have
to have kind of an emotional truth,
and the people, no matter how fun¬
ny they look, have to be at least
treated like they’re human beings. I
don’t know how else you’d react.”

As to how' the results will play
to an audience. Winfield would not
venture a guess. "1 saw Tim about a
month ago. 1 asked him how it was
coming together, because I had
been saying, ‘It’s a very funny
movie.’ Me said. ‘Well, you know.
I’m not sure this is a funny movie.*
I was just sort of dumb-founded.

Everybody was laughing while
we were doing it. so why should
it suddenly be unfunny? I’m just
curious to see what he’s doing to
it now.”

ITS Postal Service Statement Of Ownership, Man
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FANTASTIQUE; 2). Publication No 0145*
6032 3) Dale of tiling: 9/30/96 4) Frequency
of issues monthly, 5). No of issues published
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$48 00 7 & 8) Complete mailing address of
known office ot publication & genera! business
office of publisher: 7240 W Roosevelt Rd
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plele mailing address of publisher editor Fred
enck S. Clarke. P.O 0a« 270, Oak Park, IL:
60303 10). Owner’ Frederick S Clarke. P O
Bon 270. Oak Park. IL 60303 11) Known
bondholders, mortgages, and other security
holders owning or holding 1 percent or more ot
Ihe total amount of bonds, mortgages or other
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dote for circulation data below: Oct. 1996. 15).
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ments made by me above are correct and
complete Fredenck S Clarke, publisher, editor
8 owner

61

Mistaken identity

Regarding "Short Notes” in the Oc¬
tober issue [28:4/5:5), please note
that it is David (PUPPET MASTER
III) DcGoteuu. and not Ken Russell,
who directed SKELETONS. The
film has a east full of familiar faces,
including Christopher Plummer,
Dee Wallace Stone, James Coburn,
Paul Bartel, Dennis Christopher
and Carroll Baker. Tim Murphy

South El Monte, CA 91733

James cameron meets

PHILIP K. DICK

I read the recent letter “Summing
up James Cameron" (28:4/5:62)
with great interest. Ernie Hold's ref¬
erence to the relationship between
TERMINATORS 1 and II and
Philip K. Dick’s writings was espe¬
cially accurate. I know this because
I was responsible for developing
SCREAMERS, based on Philip K.
Dick’s “Second Variety” in 1979,1
gave Cameron a copy of this story
and the screenplay treatment I had
written, thereby inadvertently initi¬
ating his rise into fame and fortune.

For me. SCREAMERS' story
began in 1960 when I first read
“Second Variety." In 19791 arranged
for the film production company I
was then developing movies for to
option this short story. Over the next
three years, while trying to produce
this film, I descended further and
further into the sort of topsy-turvy
world usually reserved for Phil’s fic¬
tional characters.

Despite BLADE RUNNER,
TOTAL RECALL, and, most re¬
cently. SCREAMERS, Philip K.
Dick has yet to receive all the credit
he deserves in Hollywood.

Daniel Gilbertson
Santa Monica, CA 90405

Tarzan junk

TARZAN: THE EPIC ADVEN¬
TURES [28:2| slinks of a poor
HERCULES/XENA rip-off It’s
right there in the title, for crying
out loud. And if this is the route
they plan on taking, it’s going to be
held up to those two and look like
a poor imitation. It looked it from
the photos. I noticed that the new
Tarzan (Joe Lara) doesn’t carry a
knife, which makes me suspect the
ol* PC monster. I also noticed him
wearing boots. This was the same
for the last television Tarzan.
What’s going on? Do these guys
have ugly feet or arc they just
afraid to ding their precious toes?
How many fine actors have pre¬
ceded them and not done this?

I also have to comment on Dennis
Steinmetz* remarks on how “...what
we thought he [Burroughs) would
want to do in our situation.” In other
words, he threw Burroughs’ ideas
right out the window for his own. I’ve
heard all this stuff before. “We’re gi>-
ing to follow Burroughs," “We’re go¬
ing to be loyal to the story." Yeah,
right. I'll believe it when I see it. and
from what I've already seen of
TARZAN: THE EPIC ADVEN¬
TURES, it’s going to be just like all
the others—junk. Hopefully, it won’t
have a long life. David Burton
Manchester, NH 03108

Trek’s dramatic

RADIO ROOTS

I violently disagreed with the
"Star" ratings for the classic STAR
TREK [27:11/12:26|, which some¬
times seemed almost perverse.
They seemed to be driven by a
feminist agenda and reminded me
of a professor I had at the Univer¬
sity of Toronto, who could not
even deliver lectures on geogra¬
phy without turning them into
Communist propaganda. It was
particularly useful to have so
many of the actors identified, hut
how could Sue Uram have failed
to mention the wonderful perfor¬
mance by Logan Ramsey as the
Proconsul in “Bread and Circus¬
es," to my mind one of the out¬
standing bits of characterization in
all of TREK.

It has often struck me as odd
that, in all the millions of words
that have been written about STAR
TREK, no one has mentioned, to
my knowledge, that three of the
actors came out of the Canadian
Broadcasting Corporation’s
“Stage" scries of radio dramas—
James Doohan, William Shatner
and John Colicos (who created the
characterization of a Klingon in
“Errand of Mercy," which all oth¬
ers since have followed). This was
a weekly scries of hour-long dra¬
mas which combined the name
with the year, i.e.. Stage 47. Stage
48, Stage 49. etc. They were the
best radio dramas I ever heard and
I have heard radio drama from
England and the U.S.—better than
Norman Corwin, better than Arch
Oboler. R.R. Anger

Toronto, Ontario

More trek
corrections

Thunks for the terrific July double Is¬
sue on the 30th anniversary of STAR
TREK |27:11/12). The many inter¬

views were great, and the rare photos
and layout were top-notch as usual.

However, there were quite a few
factual errors that even the mitst casu¬
al TREK fan would spot (don’t you
have even tine editor who knows any¬
thing about this series?) For example:
Page 31 (Mudd’s Women sidebar)
lists a Karen Stuhl instead of Steele;
page 47: photo caption for "The
Menagerie" says this is Spock’s first
Vulcan neck pinch scene. No, that
would be “The Enemy Within." The
same mistake is repeated on page 42
(Miri sidebar). A photo on page 48
describes Shatner, Nirnoy and Whit¬
ney holding "phaser weapons." Take
another Ux»k—they’re flashing lights
with colored lenses! (I had one of
those lights in the ’60s, too.) Pages 51
and 39 mention Majel Barrett in
1966-67 as Roddenberry’s “new
wife." but they weren’t married until
1970—long after TREK was can¬
celled. And page 55 has a photo cap¬
tion listing guest star Roger Peoy. but
the picture is of a bit-part actor who
only had two lines. Dohh.

CFO regularly puts out great issues
on TREK, hut 1 wish you had more
Trek-sawy editors. Jim I vers

S. Norwalk, (T 06854

CINEFANTASTIQUE welcomes
your opinions. Address all corre¬
spondence to Letters. CINEFAN¬
TASTIQUE, P.O. Box 270, Oak
Park, IL.60303. Send e-mail to:
mail@cfq.com

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Join Starfleelt Want to Join a Star Trek sim
ming (role playing) group 7 E mail me at Ell-
norKinl@Ral.com. Hope to see you in the
24th century.

The bubhi j* ;um cards

rootiniird from pag? 19

Tnpps in designing new curds ren¬
dered by Earl Worem in the tradi¬
tion of the original series for the
reissued set. “Gary carried the ball
the rest of the way with the new
card art for 1994," said Brown.
“Actually the Earl Norem paint¬
ings were done a couple of years
earlier, when we first thought we
would do a 66 card series," said
Brown.

The success of the reissued
cards has led to a line of Topps*
Mars Attacks! comic books, with
Brown writing stories for the ‘94
mini-series. "The comic book
seemed like a natural for Topps."
said Brown. “While science-fic¬
tion may not have a great truck
record in comics, we felt Mars At¬
tacks!’ had enough of a cult fol¬
lowing to make it work for us. I'm
delighted to sec it revived again
this year. At Topps we believe and
have proven that you don't have to
he a super-hero comics publisher
to he successful."

ROD STEIGER

ronlitiurd from 21

the spirit of the cards they used to
exchange like baseball cards. We
hope it’s more of a comic DR.
STRANGELOVE. I just hope they
leave it alone and don’t re-edit it.
By and large, very few directors in
this town finish a film actually the
way they want—which is a crime.
But Burton does, because they
don't know what he's going to do!
And he’s smart enough to do just
what he needs."

Art direction

tniUinunt from pagr 12

idea that that would he one of the
ways that we would tie the look of
the picture together. Each local has
its own color palette, in a way. and
sometimes the color palettes will
he mixed among two or three of
the worlds, hut not across the
board. The idea was to integrate
color throughout the whole pic¬
ture, with the hope that there
would be a visual 'through line,*
throughout the whole movie.

"That to me is still my biggest
fear—tying the look of the picture
together," concluded Thomas. “To
this day I don’t know whether all
the elements belong in the same
picture. I know the choices I made,
and I know what I was hoping for.
But that’s something that you really
don’t see until you sit down and sec
the whole picture put together, p

62

m

Volume 5 Number 3

The 50 sexiest women in science
fiction! Also* Angie Everhart, Mia
Kirshner, Julia Roberts, THE
CRAFT and VAMRYRE $8.00

Volume 5 Number 4

Featuring Sigourney Weaver,
Adrienne Barbeau, Madeleine Smith
and Jennifer Tilly. Also, Nikki Fritz
and J.J North go online' $8,00

VdumvSNunberS

VAMRIRELLA in the flesh. From
her came book origins to Roger Gor¬
man’s film version for Showtime
starring Taltsa Soto as Vamp*. $8,00

Volume 5 Number 6

Juke Strain, the seff-prodarned
"Queen of Mutomecfca p canckty probes
nto Ihe production of her saucy movies
Also, the career of Kim Cafliall $8,00

Volume 5 Mortar 7

This issue features Elvira, Mistress
of the Dark, posing in her sexiest,
most revoaling photos to dale Also a
profile of Althea Massey $8.00

ORDER TOLL FREE BY PHONE, 1-800-798-6515 OR USE ORDER FORM, SEE PAGE 61

Call in your twelve-issue charter subscription today, and we'll send you a
free 8x10 color photo (shown below), personally autographed by video
stars Vanessa Taylor and Jacqueline Lovell, the sexy sirens of Surrender
Cinema (as seen in FEMALIEN). A twelve-issue subscription is $48. Char¬
ter subscriptions are for new subscribers only. If you are either a current or
lapsed subscriber, you can still take advantage of this special subscription
offer by renewing or extending your subscription for twenty-four more is¬
sues (foreign subscribers, see coupon page 61).

Start with our next monthly issue (shown left) devoted to The Bad Girls of
London Night's Comic Books—In The Flesh! As the rogue’s gallery of Lon¬
don Night's sultry superheroines would voluntarily profess, "Yeah, we're
bad — and we like bein' drawn that way!" Speculating on a transition to the
big screen, London Night and the Ministry of Film have cast Hollywood’s
thermal bombshells as their comic book icons—Carmen Electra. singer and
MTV spokesperson, as "vampire vixen" Embrace, Heather Elizabeth
Parkhurst, the siren of Showtime's SHERMAN OAKS, as Tommi Gunn.
Vanessa Taylor, Full Moon's resident sci-fi sex symbol, as Razor, and Julie
Smith, the sultry shoot-'em-up stingray of Andy Sidaris' DAY OF THE
WARRIOR, as VR Vixen, all uncovered in exclusive photos and interviews.
Subscribe today, and pick up those back issues you may have missed!

Free 8x10, Autographed by Video Stars
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Volume 4 Number B

Pamela Anderson Lee's
BAYWATCH alter ego surfaces in
BARB WIRE, the Dark Horse
comics screen adaptation $8,00

Volume 5 Number 1

Pamela Green, world-famous
figure model, reminisces about
working for British auteur Michael
Powell on his honor classic $8.00

Volume 5 Number 2

Pamela Goer—FOXY BROWN.
CGFFY—drva of the 70s
Blaxplortafion films in a rare up-

Volume 4 Number 7

Read about high profile actresses
like Karen Allen and Margot Kidder
who are crossing over to interactive
entertainment $8.00

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Edgar Rlct Burroughs'
Fantastic Worlds

This comprehensive book give a
detailed overview of the characters
and books of Edgar Rice Bur¬
roughs. Special emphasis on the
Mars and Tarzan books. This book
also contains an interview with Bur¬
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tors and is profusely illustrated
throughout Color. 192 pp. $17.95

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Men. Makeup and Monsters:

Hollywood's Masters
of Illusion end F/X

This book serves as an entertain¬
ing examination of the magical world
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makeup geniuses, who provide rare
photos and designs. This book is
perfect for those who Ve ever asked
the proverbial question. "How did
they do that?" 256 pp $19,95

The Book of Allen

This exciting behind-the-scenes
story of the making of one of the
most popular and influential sci-fi
films of all time. Packed with
sketches, working photographs
and interviews with key personnel
such as H R Giger and Ridley
Scon, this book by Paul Scanlon
and Michael Gross provides fasci¬
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The Making of Bladerunner

This is a fascinating look at the
ever-shifting interface between com¬
merce and art that is modem Holly¬
wood Future Noe is the intense, in¬
timate* anything-but-glamorous in¬
side account of how the work of so¬
ft's most uncompromising author
was transformed into a critical sen¬
sation, a commercial success and a
cult classic 441pp. $14.00

The Modem Horror Film

While most horror film compen¬
dia laud the praise of the 'classic"
horror films produced before 1950,
John McCarty has selected 50 films
which he feels deserve to be con¬
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from the 50s to the '80s. these films
have contributed to the growth and
development of the horror film of to¬
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The Superhero Photo Guidebook

This book by Tom Rogers and
■mage is the ultimate visual ap¬
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Copperhead and their peers Con¬
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detailed information on their ap¬
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productions* this book includes
great photos of nearly every super¬
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The Dark Shadows Almanac

Edited by senes archivist Jim
Pierson and DARK SHADOWS ac¬
tress Kathryn Leigh Scott, this
book overflows with fascinating
facts* anecdotes and trivia about
the ABC-TV daytime series, along
with dozens of never-before-pub¬
lished photographs. Also contains
a complete list of cast and charac¬
ters $17,95

Necronom I Mousepad
by HM. Giger

This beautiful ‘Cyberhead* image
is quintessential! Giger and one of
the Swiss arttst/designer's most pop
ular paintings. Each painting is care¬
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lexan with an attractive leatherette
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7.5” x 94P. $17.95

The 1997 H.R. Giger Calendar

The H.R. Giger calendar is your
passport ot the exploration of
Giger's darkling imagination, from
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bizarre creatures. This calendar is
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contains 15 full-color images from
the designer of ALIEN and
SPECIES $14.95

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The Dark Shadows Tribute Book

Written by James van Rise and
Edward Gross, this unique volume
recalls the behind-the-scenes story
of America's scariest soap opera
Meet the cast and crew and relrve
the wonderful storylines which
DARK SHADOWS brought to the
air. In addition, a complete episode
guide to all 600 episodes is includ¬
ed 144 pp $14.95

H R. Giger s Film Design

The long awaited compilation of
Giger's amazing film work, from hts
earliest work in 16mm to ALIEN 3
and BATMAN FOREVER. This vol¬
ume provides a rich overview of the
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visual designer in the history of cin*
ema. Hard-cover with dust jacket,
129 pp. with 200 reproductions,
most in full color. $49.50

Dark Shadows Resurrected

The new 1990 incarnation of
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a network life of only 12 episodes,
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Landscape XIV Mousepad
by H R Giger

This sinking mousepad s guaran¬
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Extra thick non-skp rubberized base
From Morpheus International 7.5" x
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Phantoms of the Opera

Author John L Flynn and image
go behind the scenes of every film
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LJoyd Webber's phenomenal the¬
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This collection of H R Giger's
design sketches for the movie
SPECIES is the most elegantly dis¬
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Giger's reasons for accepting his
challenge provide a fascinating
context for the designs $29.50

PHONE OR USE ORDER FORM, SEE PAGE 61